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OF  CALIFORNIA 

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CIVILIZATION 

DURING   THE   MIDDLE   AGES 


ESPECIALLY  IN 
RELATION  TO  MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


BY 

GEORGE    BURTON    ADAMS 

PROFESSOR  OF   HISTORY   IN  YALE   COLLEGE 


REVISED    EDITION 


CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

NEW    YORK  CHICAGO  BOSTON 


f    r>    ./A    r» 


COPYBIGHX,  1894.  1914,  BY 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

Copyright,  1922,  by 
GEORGE  B.  ADAMS 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  Ameiica 


^  »■>  ':^ 


A2le  ^lA 

1922 


FROM   THE   PREFACE  TO  THE 
FIRST   EDITION 

The^  object  of  this  book  is  to  show  how  the  foundations 
of  our  civilization  were  laid  in  the  past  and  how  its  chief 
v^elements  were  introduced,  and  to  depict  its  progressive^ 
K^  development  until  it  had  assumed  its  most  characteristic 
v'   modern  features.     Its  purpose  is  to  show  the  movement 
V  and  direction  of  historic  forces,  and  the  relation  of  the 
facts  of  history  one  to  another.     In  other  words,  it  is  to 
present  as  clear  a  view  as  possible  of  what  is  the  most 
important  thing  for  all  introductory  study  at  least,  and 
for   the   permanent   intellectual   furniture   of   most — the 
' »  orderly  and  organic  growth  of  our  civilization.     If  any- 
^   where  the  details  have  been  allowed  to  obscure  the  gen- 
eral movement,  there  I  have  failed  to  reahze  my  inten- 
tion. 

This  being  the  object  of  the  book,  the  notes  have  been 
««^  confined  as  closely  as  possible  to  references  to  the  best  of 
J  easily   accessible   books   where   fuller   accounts   may   be 
\i  found,    or    which    contain    translations    of    the    original 
•  sources,  and  to  the  statement  of  points  which  seemed 
important  in  themselves,  but  which  did  not  find  a  natural 
place  in  the  text.     In  a  few  cases  where  a  single  authority 
has  been  closely  followed,  a  reference  has  been  added. 
Otherwise  reference  has  not  been  made  to  the  author- 
ities used.     Those  who  are  familiar  with  the  literature 
of  the  subjects  treated  will  be  able  to  recognize  them, 
and  they  will  be  able  also,  I  believe,  to  find  some  evi- 


Vl  FROM   THE    PREFACE    TO    THE    FIRST    EDITION 

dence  of  original  knowledge  and  of  independent  judg- 
ment. 

This  book  is  an  outgrowth  of  the  author's  Primer  of 
Mediceval  Civilization  in  the  "History  Primer  Series," 
and  that  book  may  perhaps  be  used  with  advantage  as  a 
more  full  summary  than  the  one  given  in  ^he  last  chapter 
of  this  volume. 

New  Havxn,  December  21,  1893, 


PREFACE  TO  THE   REVISED   EDITION 

In  the  present  edition  numerous  revisions  have  been 
made  and  some  pages  rewritten  or  added.  I  can  hardly 
hope  that  I  or  my  friends  have  detected  all  statements 
needing  to  be  modified,  but  the  attempt  has  been  made 
to  do  so.  I  am  indebted  for  suggestions  in  this  direction 
to  many  who  have  used  the  book,  and  particularly  to 
Professors  George  L.  Burr,  of  Cornell,  Dana  C.  Munro, 
of  Wisconsin,  and  Henry  B.  Wright,  of  Yale,  Universities. 

Since  bibliographical  helps  are  now  much  more  readily 
accessible  to  the  student  than  twenty  years  ago,  it  has 
not  seemed  necessary  to  retain  notes  of  a  general  biblio- 
graphical character,  and  they  have  been  dropped.  The 
number  of  special  bibhographical  references  has  been 
somewhat  increased. 

New  Haven,  June  3,  1914. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEK  PAOB 

I.  Introduction    .    .* 3 

II.  What  the  Middle  Ages  Started  with     ...  15 

III.  The  Addition  of  Christianity 39 

IV.  The  German  Conquest  and  the  Fall  of  Rome  64 
V.  What  the  Germans  Added 88_ 

VI.  The  Formation  of  the  Papacy 106 

VII.  The  Franks  and  Charlemagne 135 

VIII.  After  Charlemagne 166 

-  IX.  The  Feudal  System 189' 

X.  The  Empire  and  the  Papacy 224 

'  XL  The  Crusades       254 

"  XII.  The  Growth  of  Commerce  and  Its  Results     .  274 

XIII.  The  Formation  of  France 305 

XIV.  England  and  the  Other  States 332 

XV.  The  Renaissance 356 

XVI.  The  Papacy  in  the  New  Age 383 

XVII.  The  Reformation 406 

XVIII.  Summary 433 

Index 447 


MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 


MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 


CHAPTER   I 

INTRODUCTION 

History  is  commonly  divided,  for  convenience'  sake, 
into  three  great  periods — ancient,  medieval,  and  modern. 
Such  a  division  is,  to  this  extent,  a  natural  one  that  each 
of  these  periods  in  a  large  view  of  it  is  distinguished  by 
certain  peculiarities  from  the  others.  Ancient  history 
began  in  an  unknown  antiquity,  and  is  characterized  by 
a  very  considerable  progress  of  civilization  along  three 
or  four  separate  lines.  Each  of  these  was  the  work  of  a 
distinct  people,  the  results  of  whose  labors  were  not  com- 
bined into  a  common  whole  until  near  the  close  of  this 
period,  though  the  process  of  combination  in  some  partic- 
ulars had  been  long  under  way.  As  the  period  approached 
its  end  the  vitality  of  the  ancient  races  appears  to  have 
declined  and  the  progress  of  civilization  ceased,  except, 
perhaps,  along  a  single  line. 

Medieval  history  opens  with  the  introduction  of  a  new 
and  youthful  race  upon  the  stage — a  race  destined  to  take 
up  the  work  of  the  ancient  world  and  to  carry  it  on. 
But  the  men  of  this  race  were  at  the  beginning  upon  a 
far  lower  stage  of  civilization  than  antiquity  had  reached. 
In  order  to  comprehend  its  work  and  continue  it,  they 
must  be  brought  up  to  that  level.  This  was  necessarily 
a  long  and  slow  process,  accompanied  with  much  appar- 
ent loss  of  civilization,  much  ignorance  and  anarchy,  and 


4  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

many  merely  temporary  makeshifts  in  ideas  and  institu- 
tions. But  gradually  improvement  began,  the  new  so- 
ciety came  to  comprehend  more  and  more  clearly  the 
work  it  had  to  do  and  the  results  gained  by  its  prede- 
cessors, it  began  to  add  new  achievements  to  the  old  ones, 
and  the  period  closed  when  at  last  the  new  nations,  in 
fairly  complete  possession  of  the  work  of  the  ancient 
world  in  literature,  science,  philosophy,  and  religion, 
opened  with  the  greatest  energy  and  vigor  a  new  age  of 
progress.  This  is  medieval  history,  the  first  part  of  it — 
the  "dark  ages,"  if  it  is  right  to  call  them  by  that  name 
— when  ancient  civilization  fell  a  prey  to  savage  violence 
and  superstition;  the  last  part  of  it,  the  recovery  of  most 
of  that  civilization,  with  some  important  additions,  by 
the  now  transformed  barbarians — the  period  which  we 
call,  when  it  has  fully  opened,  the  age  of  the  Renaissance. 

Modern  history,  again,  is  characterized  by  the  most 
rapid  and  successful  advance  along  a  great  variety  of 
lines,  not  now,  so  much  as  in  the  ancient  world,  the  dis- 
tinctive work  of  separate  peoples,  but  all  parts  of  a  com- 
mon world  civilization  which  all  nations  alike  possess. 

While,  however,  we  can  point  out  in  this  way  distin- 
guishing features  of  these  larger  periods,  we  must  care- 
fully bear  in  mind  the  elementary  fact  of  all  history,  that 
there  are  no  clearly  marked  boundary  lines  between  its 
subdivisions.  One  age  passes  into  another  by  a  gradual 
transformation  which  is  entirely  unnoticed  by  the  actors 
of  the  time,  and  which  can  be  far  more  clearly  pointed 
out  by  the  historian  as  an  accomplished  fact  than  by 
anything  in  the  process. 

The  traditional  date  for  the  close  of  ancient  history  is 
the  year  476  a.  d.,  but  recent  historians  differ  widely  in  the 
specific  date  they  choose.  The  great  fact  which  marks 
the  close  of  that  age  and  the  beginning  of  a  new  one  is 
the  conquest  of  the  Western  Roman  Empire  by  the  Ger- 
man tribes,  a  process  which  occupied  the  whole  of  th^ 


•      INTRODUCTION  5 

fifth  century  and  more.  But  if  we  are  to  select  any 
special  date  to  mark  the  change,  the  year  476  is  prob- 
ably the  best  for  the  purpose.  The  conquest  was  then 
well  under  way,  and  in  that  year  the  title  of  Emperor  of 
Rome  was  given  up  in  the  West,  where  it  had  been  for 
a  long  time  a  mere  shadow;  an  embassy  was  sent  to 
Constantinople  to  say  that  the  West  would  be  satisfied 
with  the  one  emperor  in  the  East,  and  to  request  him 
to  commit  the  government  of  Italy  to  Odoaker.  At  the 
moment  all  the  other  provinces  of  the  West  were  occu- 
pied, or  just  about  to  be  occupied,  by  new  German  king- 
doms, some  faintly  acknowledging  the  supremacy  of  the 
empire,  others  not  at  all. 

When  we  turn  to  the  close  of  medieval  history  we  find 
even  less  general  agreement  as  to  the  specific  date  which 
shall  be  selected  to  stand  for  that  fact.  For  one  author 
it  is  1453,  the  fall  of  the  Eastern  Roman  Empire  through 
the  capture  of  Constantinople  by  the  Turks;  for  another, 
1492,  the  discovery  of  America;  for  another,  1520,  the 
full  opening  of  the  Reformation.  This  variety  of  date 
is  in  itself  very  significant.  It  unconsciously  marks  the 
extremely  important  fact  that  the  middle  ages  come  to 
an  end  at  different  dates  in  the  different  lines  of  advance 
—manifestly  earlier  in  politics  and  economics  than  upon, 
the  intellectual  side — a  fact  which  must  receive  more 
detailed  attention  in  the  proper  place.  Each  author  is 
under  strong  temptation  to  select  for  the  close  of  the  gen- 
eral period  the  date  of  its  close  in  that  particular  field  in 
which  he  is  especially  interested.  For  the  purpose  of  the 
present  sketch  the  date  1520  must  De  chosen,  because, 
although  upon  the  political  side  the  whole  Reformation 
period  is  clearly  in  the  full  current  of  modern  interna- 
tional politics,  still,  in  other  directions,  it  just  as  plainly 
marks  the  transition  from  medieval  to  modern  times,  and 
so  fixes  th^  completion  for  the  whole  round  of  civiliza- 
tion of  the  period  which  we  are  especially  to  study. 


6  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

This  period  is  one,  then,  of  something  more  than  a 
thousand  years,  lying  roughly  between  the  dates  476  and 
1520.  It  is  an  exceedingly  important  period  to  study  for 
the  purpose  of  gaining  a  conception  of  the  greater  move- 
ments of  history  as  a  whole,  because,  coming  as  an  age 
of  transition  between  two  ages  of  greater  apparent  ad- 
vance, its  opening  conditions  cannot  be  understood  with- 
out considerable  knowledge  of  the  results  of  ancient  his- 
tory, and  its  closing  age  carries  us  so  far  into  the  current 
of  modern  history  that  we  necessarily  gain  some  idea  of 
the  forces  which  determine  the  new  directions,  and  thus 
the  whole  course  of  history  is,  to  a  considerable  extent, 
covered  by  any  careful  study  of  its  middle  period.  In 
order  to  obtain  such  a  view  as  this  it  will  be  a  necessary 
part  of  our  plan  to  look  somewhat  in  detail  at  the  situa- 
tion of  things  in  the  last  age  of  ancient  history,  and  also 
in  the  opening  age  of  modern  history,  though  somewhat 
less  fully,  because  its  character  and  conditions  are  more 
familiar  to  us. 

The  period  so  defined  is  also  a  long  one  in  the  life  of 
the  race — somewhere  near  a  third  of  its  recorded  history. 
It  must  be  in  itself  important,  and  in  order  to  understand 
it  thoroughly  we  must  first  of  all  obtain  as  clear  a  concep- 
tion as  possible  of  its  place  in  the  general  history  of  the 
world. 

We  have  already  very  briefly  indicated  what  its  char- 
acter is.  It  is  a  transition  age.  Lying,  as  it  does,  be- 
tween two  ages,  in  each  of  which  there  is  an  especially 
rapid  advance  of  civilization,  it  is  not  itself  primarily  an 
age  of  progress.  As  compared  with  either  ancient  or  mod- 
ern history,  the  additions  which  were  made  during  the 
middle  ages  to  the  common  stock  of  civilization  are  few 
and  unimportant.  Absolutely,  perhaps,  they  are  not  so. 
We  shall  be  able  by  the  time  our  work  is  finished  to  make 
a  considerable  catalogue  of  things  which  have  been  gained 
during  these  centuries  in  the  way  of  institutions,  and  of 


INTRODUCTION  7 

ideas,  and  of  positive  knowledge.  But  the  most  impor- 
tant of  them  fall  within  the  last  part  of  the  period,  and 
they  are  really  indications  that  the  age  is  drawing  to  a 
close,  and  a  new  and  different  one  coming  on.  Progress, 
however  much  there  may  have  been,  is  not  its  distinctive 
characteristic. 

There  is  a  popular  recognition  of  this  fact  in  the  gen- 
eral opinion  that  the  medieval  is  a  very  barren  and  unin- 
teresting period  of  history — the  "dark  ages" — so  con- 
fused and  without  evident  plan  that  its  facts  are  a  mere 
disorganized  jumble,  impossible  tc^educe  to  sysUBllPbr  to 
hold  in  mind.  This  must  be  emphatically  true  for  every 
one,  unless  there  can  be  found  running  through  all  its 
confusion  some  single  line  of  evolution  which  will  give  it 
meaning  and  organization.  If  we  can  discover  what  was 
the  larger  general  work  which  had  to  be  done  during  this 
period  for  the  civilization  of  the  world,  then  we  shall  find 
the  smaller  details — the  individual  steps  in  the  doing  of 
that  work — falling  into  place,  becoming  systematic,  and 
orderly,  and  easy  to  remember.  And  most  certainly 
there  must  be  some  such  general  meaning  of  the  age. 
The  orderly  and  regular  progress  of  history  makes  it 
impossible  that  it  should  be  otherwise.  Whether  that 
meaning  can  be  correctly  stated  or  not  is  much  more 
uncertain.  It  is  the  difficulty  of  doing  this  which  makes 
medieval  history  seem  so  comparatively  barren  a  period. 

The  most  evident  general  meaning  of  the  age  is  that 
which  has  been  hinted  at  above.  It  is  assimilation.  The 
greatest  work  which  had  to  be  done  was  to  bring  the 
German  barbarian,  who  had  taken  possession  of  the  an- 
cient ,,world  and  become  everywhere  the  ruling  race,  up 
to  such  a  level  of  attainment  and  understanding  that  he 
would  be  able  to  take  up  the  work  of  civilization  where 
antiquity  had  been  forced  to  suspend  it  and  go  on  with 
it  from  that  point. 

Progress   had   ceased   in    the   ancient   world.     Having 


O  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

brought  civilization  up  to  a  certain  point,  the  classical 
peoples  seem  to  have  been  able  to  carry  it  no  farther. 
Even  in  those  fields  where  the  most  remarkable  results 
had  been  attained,  as,  for  example,  in  that  of  the  Roman 
law,  nothing  farther  seemed  to  be  possible,  except  to 
work  over  the  old  results  into  new  forms.  Only  in  a 
single  line,  and  that  more  or  less  in  opposition  to  the 
general  society  of  which  it  formed  a  part — only  in  the 
Christian  church — was  there  any  evidence  of  energy  and 
honeful  life.     The  creative  power  o^ntiquity  seems  to 

But  in  this  statement  the  word  seems  must  be  made 
emphatic.  We  have  no  right  whatever  to  assert  dogmat- 
ically that  it  was  so.  The  analogy  between  the  life  of  a 
man  and  the  life  of  a  race — childhood,  middle  life,  old 
age,  death — is  an  attractive  one,  but  it  is  necessary  to 
remember  that  it  is  the  merest  analogy,  without  any  sup- 
port in  facts.  History  gives  us  no  clear  case  of  any  na- 
tion perishing  from  old  age.  It  is  altogether  probable 
that  if  the  Roman  world  had  been  left  to  itself — had  not 
been  conquered  and  taken  possession  of  by  a  foreign  race 
— it  would  in  time  have  recovered  its  productive  power 
and  begun  a  new  age  of  advance.  Some  early  instances 
of  revived  strength,  as  under  Constantine  and  Theodo- 
sius,  show  the  possibility  of  this.  The  Eastern  Roman 
Empire,  under  far  less  favorable  conditions  than  would 
have  existed  in  the  Western,  did  do  this  later  to  a  limited 
extent.  The  West  would  certainly  have  accomplished 
much  more. 

But  the  opportunity  was  not  to  be  granted  it.  Ever 
since  the  days  of  Marius  and  the  first  Caesar  the  Germans 
had  been  waiting  an  opportunity  to  force  their  way  to 
the  west  and  south.  Watching  for  any  unguarded  point, 
attacking  from  the  middle  of  the  second  century  with 
constantly  increasing  boldness  and  frequency,  as  the  power 
of  resistance  declined,  they  finally  found  the  empire  too 


INTRODUCTION  9 

weak  to  repel  them  any  longer,  and,  breaking  through  the 
outer  shell,  had  e^^e^ything  their  own  way.  They  took 
possession  of  the  whole  Western  Empire.  Province  after 
province  passed  into  their  hands.  Everywhere  they  over- 
threw the  existing  government  and  set  up  kingdoms  of 
their  own,  some  of  them  short-lived  and  crude,  others 
full  of  promise  and  of  longer  continuance,  but  everywhere 
they  became  the  ruling  race — the  Roman  was  the  subject. 
But  if  they  were  physically  the  stronger  race,  and  gifted 
with  some  legal  and  political  notions  worthy  to  join  with 
those  of  the  Romans  in  equal  partnership,  they  were  in 
other  regards  rude  and  barbarous — children  in  knowledge 
and  understanding — in  the  actual  point  of  civilization 
which  they  had  reached  by  themselves,  scarcely,  if  in- 
deed at  all,  above  the  level  of  the  best  tribes  of  North 
American  Indians.  In  capacity  for  civilization,  in  their 
ability  to  meet  a  corrupt  civilization  of  a  higher  grade 
than  their  own  and  not  be  permanently  injured  by  it — 
though  certainly  some  of  the  best  of  them,  the  Franks, 
for  instance,  seem  to  have  had  quite  as  great  a  capacity 
for  absorbing  the  bad  as  the  good — in  the  rapidity  with 
which  they  responded  to  the  stimulus  of  new  ideas  and 
experiences  they  were  apparently  superior  even  to  the 
Cherokefii—Yet  in  very  many  ways — in  ideas,  in  dress, 
in  habits  and  ways  of  living,  in  methods  of  warfare  and 
diplomacy — the  parallel  is  very  close  and  interesting,"'^  and 
if  we  can  imagine  a  civilized  land  taken  possession  of  by 
bands  of  warriors  not  materially  above  the  best  of  our 
Indians  in  actual  attainment,  though  superior  to  them 

^  It  is,  perhaps,  hardly  fair  to  the  Cherokee  to  demand  that  he  should 
have  made  as  much  progress  in  one  hundred  years  as  the  Franks  did  in 
three  hundred,  and  when  one  examines  the  facts  impartially  it  is  by  no 
means  so  clear  that  he  is  not  equalling  the  German  rate  of  advance,  and 
greatly  surpassing  it,  as  indeed  he  ought. 

^  For  a  description  of  some  of  these  particulars,  see  the  imaginary  capture 
of  a  Roman  frontier  town  by  a  German  band,  in  Dahn's  novelette,  Felicitas. 
For  some  others,  see  the  account  of  the  Saxon  wars  of  Charlemagne,  in 
Emerton's  Introduction  to  the  Middle  Ages,  chap.  XIII. 


10  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

in  spirit  and  in  moral  tone,  the  picture  will  not  be  far 
wrong. 

They  were  filled  with  wonder  at  the  evidences  of  skill 
and  art  which  they  saw  on  all  sides,  but  they  did  not 
understand  them  and  they  could  not  use  them.  The 
story  of  the  German  warrior  who,  astonished  at  seeing 
ducks  apparently  swimming  on  the  floor  of  the  ante- 
chamber in  which  he  was  waiting,  dashed  his  battle-axe 
at  the  beautiful  mosaic  to  see  if  they  were  living  is  thor- 
oughly typical  of  the  whole  age.  Much  they  destroyed 
through  ignorance  and  much  in  merely  childish  or  sav- 
age moods.  Much  more  was  forgotten  and  disappeared 
because  no  one  any  longer  cared  for  it  or  demanded  its 
use.  Art,  which  had  long  been  slowly  dying,  at  last  per- 
ished. Science,  no  longer  of  interest  to  any  one,  disap- 
peared. The  knowledge  of  the  Greek  language  was  for- 
gotten; the  Latin  in  popular  use  was  greatly  corrupted. 
Skill  of  handicraft  was  lost.  Roads  and  bridges  fell  out 
of  repair.  Intercommunication  became  difficult;  com- 
merce declined.  Few  common  ideas  and  interests  were 
left  to  bind  the  diff'erent  parts  of  the  empire,  or  even  of 
a  province,  together.  The  new  governments  were  rarely 
able  to  enforce  obedience  everywhere  and  often  hardly 
cared  to  try.  Crimes  of  violence  became  common.  Force 
reigned  where  law  and  order  had  been  supreme,  and  life 
and  property  were  far  less  secure  than  they  had  been.' 

It  is  not  strange  that  these  things  happened  or  that 
the  ages  which  followed  them  should  seem  to  be  dark  ages. 

^  A  very  interesting  comparison  could  be  made  of  the  successive  changes 
of  condition  in  Gaul  by  reading  together  passages  from  Caesar,  like  I,  17, 
18,  VI,  11-15,  and  others,  to  show  the  state  of  the  province  as  he  found  it; 
the  letters  of  Sidonius  ApoUinaris,  just  on  the  eve  of  the  conquest— trans- 
lated in  Hodgkin,  Italy  and  Her  Invaders,  vol.  II,  pp.  321-352 — to  show  what 
must  have  been  its  condition  in  the  best  daj's  of  Roman  occupation;  and  the 
story  of  Sicharius,  in  Gregory  of  Tours,  VTI,  47,  and  IX,  19 — condensed  in 
Emerton's  Introduction  to  the  Middle  Ages,  pp.  85-87 — or  the  passage  trans- 
lated from  Gregory  at  p.  147  of  this  book,  to  show  its  condition  under  the 
Franks. 


INTRODUCTION  1 1 

How  could  it  possibly  be  otherwise?  Upon  a  society  in 
which  the  productive  force  was  already  declining — a  de- 
caying and  weakening  civilization — came  a  mighty  deluge 
of  ignorance,  an  army  of  barbarians,  to  take  control  of 
everything,  thinking  of  nothing  beyond  the  physical  life 
of  the  moment,  knowing  nothing  of  art  or  science  or  skill, 
and  caring  nothing  for  them.  How  could  these  things 
be  preserved  under  such  conditions  as  a  part  of  the  con- 
scious possession  of  men?  The  decline,  which  had  begun 
before  the  Germans  came,  must  now  go  on  still  more  rap- 
idly until  everything  seemed  to  be  forgotten.  The  whole 
Western  world  fell  back  into  a  more  primitive  stage  of 
civilization,  which  it  had  once  passed  by,  and  became  more 
material,  ignorant,  and  superstitious  than  it  had  been. 
It  would  have  required  a  greater  miracle  than  is  any- 
where recorded  to  have  kept  alive  in  the  general  popu- 
lation of  the  West  the  civiHzation  of  Greece  and  Rome 
during  such  times,  for  it  would  have  required  the  recon- 
struction of  human  nature  and  the  modification  of  all 
historical  laws. 

The  larger  part  of  all  that  the  ancient  world  had  gained 
seemed  to  be  lost.  But  it  was  so  in  appearance  only. 
Almost,  if  not  quite,  every  achievement  of  the  Greeks  and 
the  Romans  in  thought,  in  science,  in  law,  in  the  practical 
arts  is  now  a  part  of  our  civilization,  either  among  the 
tools  of  our  daily  life  or  in  the  long-forgotten  or  perhaps 
disowned  foundation-stones  which  have  disappeared  from 
sight  because  we  have  built  some  more  complete  structure 
upon  them,  a  structure  which  could  never  have  been  built, 
however,  had  not  these  foundations  first  been  laid  by 
some  one.  All  of  real  value  which  had  been  gained  was 
to  be  preserved  in  the  world's  permanent  civilization. 
For  the  moment  it  seemed  lost,  but  it  was  only  for  the 
moment,  and  in  the  end  the  recovery  was  to  be  com- 
plete. By  a  long  process  of  education,  by  its  own  natural 
growth,  under  the  influence  of  the  remains  of  the  ancient 


12  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

civilization,  by  no  means  small  or  unimportant,  which 
worked  effectively  from  the  very  first,  by  widening  expe- 
rience and  outside  stimulus,  the  barbarian  society  which 
resulted  from  the  conquest  was  at  last  brought  up  to  a 
level  from  which  it  could  comprehend  the  classic  civiHza- 
tion,  at  least  to  a  point  where  it  could  see  that  it  had  very 
much  still  to  learn  from  the  ancients.  Then,  with  an  en- 
thusiasm which  the  race  has  rarely  felt,  it  made  itself 
master,  in  a  generation  or  two,  of  all  that  it  had  not  known 
of  the  classic  work — of  its  thought  and  art  and  science — • 
and,  from  the  beginning  thus  secured,  advanced  to  the 
still  more  marvellous  achievements  of  modern  times. 

This  age  of  final  recovery — the  age  of  the  Renaissance — 
marks  thus  the  completion  of  that  process  of  education 
— the  absorption  of  the  German  in  the  civilization  which 
he  had  conquered,  so  completely  that  he  was  able  to  take 
it  up  at  the  point  at  which  the  Greek  and  the  Roman  had 
been  obliged  to  drop  it  and  to  carry  it  on  to  still  higher 
results.  And  so  the  Renaissance  age  is  the  last  age  of 
medieval  history,  and  medieval  history  is  the  history  of 
that  education  and  absorption,  of  the  process  by  which 
the  German  was  brought  into  the  classical  world,  and  by 
which  out  of  the  two — the  Roman  civihzation  and  the 
German  energy  and  vigor  and  productive  power,  and  new 
ideas  and  institutions — a  new  organic  unity  was  formed 
— modern  society.  This  was  the  problem:  To  make  out 
of  the  barbarized  sixth  century,  stagnant  and  fragmen- 
tary, with  little  common  life,  without  ideals  or  enthusi- 
asms, the  fifteenth  century  in  full  possession  again  of  a 
common  world  civilization,  keen,  pushing,  and  enthu- 
siastic. This  was  what  the  middle  ages  had  to  do,  and 
this  was  what  they  did. 

It  was  a  slow  process.  It  occupied  nearly  the  whole 
of  a  thousand  years.  And  it  was  necessarily  slow.  Rome 
had  civilized  the  Celts  of  Gaul  and  made  thorough  Ro- 
mans out  of  them  in  a  hundred  years;  but  in  the  case  of 


INTRODUCTION  1 3 

the  Germans  there  were  at  least  two  very  good  reasons 
why  no  such  speedy  work  could  be  done.  In  the  first 
place,  they  were  the  conquering  race,  not  the  conquered, 
a  fact  which  made  enormous  difference.  It  was  their 
governments,  their  laws  and  institutions,  their  ideas,  their 
idioms  even,  which  were  imposed  upon  the  Romans,  not 
the  Roman  upon  them;  and,  although  the  higher  civiliza- 
tion of  their  subjects  began  its  work  upon  them  at  once, 
it  was  only  such  parts  of  it  as  especially  impressed  them, 
not  the  whole  round  of  it — with  much  of  it,  indeed,  they 
never  came  in  contact.  In  the  second  place,  the  Rome 
of  the  fifth  century  was  no  longer  the  Rome  of  the  first. 
Her  digestive  and  assimilating  power  was  gone;  indeed,  in 
the  interval  the  process  had  even  been  reversed  and  she 
had  herself  already  become  barbarized,  and  Germanized 
also,  unable  to  resist  any  longer  the  influence  of  the  con- 
stantly increasing  number  of  barbarians  introduced  into 
the  empire  through  her  armies  and  her  slave  p^s.  If 
Rome  in  the  fifth  century,  characterized  as  she  then  was, 
had  conquered  Germany,  she  could  hardly  have  Roman- 
ized it  in  much  less  time  than  was  actually  required. 

But  this  work,  however  slow,  began  at  once.  From 
the  moment  when  the  German  came  into  close  contact 
with  the  Roman,  whether  as  subject  or  as  master,  he  rec- 
ognized the  fact  that  there  was  something  in  the  Roman 
civilization  superior  to  his  own,  and  he  did  not  consider 
it  beneath  him  to  borrow  and  to  learn,  in  the  majority 
of  cases,  no  doubt,  without  any  conscious  purpose,  some- 
times, certainly,  of  deliberate  intention.^     If  we  compare 

*  Through  the  whole  course  of  history  the  Teutonic  race  has  been  char- 
acterized, above  most  other  races,  by  its  ability  to  adapt  itself  to  a  changed 
environment  and  to  become  in  a  short  time  completely  in  harmony  with 
new  conditions.  It  is  this,  more  than  anything  else,  which  has  given  it  its 
enormous  influence  over  modern  history.  Whether  it  be  the  Teuton  in  the 
Roman  Empire,  or  the  Northman  in  France  or  Sicily,  or  the  Dane,  or  Prus- 
sian, or  Hollander  in  America,  in  every  case,  in  a  surprisingly  short  time, 
the  immigrant  has  become  as  thoroughly  at  home  in  the  new  land  as  if  he 


14  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

with  modern  times  the  amount  of  advance  made  in  the 
five  centuries  following  the  fifth,  it  certainly  seems  very 
like  "a  cycle  of  Cathay";  but  if  we  judge  it  according 
to  the  conditions  of  the  time  the  gain  was  really  large 
and  the  amount  of  the  Roman  civilization  preserved  was 
greater  than  we  could  have  expected  theoretically.  We 
shall  see,  almost  before  the  political  system  gets  into  any 
settled  shape,  decided  improvement  in  knowledge  and 
interest  in  science,  the  beginning  of  a  steady  progress 
which  never  ceases. 

Here,  then,  is  the  work  of  the  middle  ages.  To  the 
results  of  ancient  history  were  to  be  added  the  ideas 
and  institutions  of  the  Germans;  to  the  enfeebled  Roman 
race  was  to  be  added  the  youthful  energy  and  vigor  of 
the  German.  Under  the  conditions  which  existed  this 
union  could  not  be  made — a  harmonious  and  homogene- 
ous Christendom  could  not  be  formed  except  through 
centuries  of  time,  through  anarchy,  and  ignorance,  and 
superstition.  In  other  words,  the  work  of  the  middle  ages 
was  not  primarily  progress,  it  was  to  form  the  organically 
united  and  homogeneous  modern  world  out  of  the  heter- 
ogeneous and  often  hostile  elements  which  the  ancient 
world  supplied,  and  so  to  furnish  the  essential  condition 
for  an  advance  beyond  any  point  possible  to  the  ancients. 
That  this  work  was  thoroughly  done  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury abundantly  testifies.  It  will  be  our  task  to  follow 
its  accomplishment,  step  by  step,  from  the  day  when  the 
barbarian  warrior  supplanted  the  Greek  philosopher  and 
the  Roman  statesman  until  we  reach" the  full  tide  of  mod- 
ern progress. 

had  occupied  it  for  centuries,  indistinguishable,  indeed,  from  the  native. 
The  modern  German  of  the  Fatherland  may  be  disposed  to  lament  that  lan- 
guage and  special  race  features  disappear  so  quickly,  but  the  student  of  his- 
tory can  easily  see  that  in  no  other  way  could  the  race  have  been,  as  it  has 
been,  the  great  creative  power  of  modern  civilization. 


CHAPTER   II 

WHAT   THE    MIDDLE    AGES    STARTED    WITH 

It  follows  from  what  has  been  said  in  the  introduction 
that  our  twentieth-century  civilization  has  not  merely 
that  complexity  of  character  of  which  we  are  so  conscious, 
but  also  that  it  is  complex  in  origin.  Its  distinct-elements 
are  the  work  of  generations  widely  separated  from  one 
another  in  time  and  space.  It  has  been  brought  together 
into  a  common  whole  from  a  thousand  different  sources. 
This  fact  is  very  familiar  as  regards  the  work  of  historic 
times.  We  recall  at  once  from  what  different  ages  and 
peoples  the  printing-press,  the  theory  of  evolution,  the 
representative  system,  the  Divine  Comedy  entered  our 
civilization  and  how  they  enriched  it.  It  is  less  easy  to 
realize  the  presence  there,  in  almost  unchanged  form,  of 
the  work  of  primitive  generations  who  lived  before  the 
possibility  of  record.  And  yet,  for  example,  we  have  only 
just  ceased  to  kindle  a  lire  and  to  raise  wheat  after  meth- 
ods practically  identical  with  those  of  the  primitive  man 
— the  modification  is  still  not  essential — and  the  discov- 
ery of  either  of  these  two  arts  was,  no  doubt,  as  great  a 
step  in  advance  at  the  time  when  it  was  made  as  any 
the  world  has  since  taken.  The  same  thing  may  be  said, 
in  a  slightly  modified  form,  of  what  is  in  some  of  our 
States  the  unit  of  our  political  system — the  town-meeting. 

Of  the  sources  from  which  the  different-  parts  of  our 
civilization  have  been  brought  together  in  historic  times 
there  are  four  which  greatly  exceed  in  importance  all  the 
others.  They  are  Greece,  Rome,  Christianity,  and  the 
Germans.    Many  separate  elements  have  come  from  other 

IS 


l6  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

sources,  some  of  them  modifying  very  essentially  our  ideas 
or  institutions — the  alphabet  from  the  eastern  end  of  the 
Mediterranean  Sea,  philosophical  notions  from  the  Tigris 
valley,  mathematical  methods  from  Hindostan.  But  so 
far  as  we  yet  know,  leaving  one  side  what  the  further 
investigation  of  the  monuments  of  early  peoples  may  have 
to  teach  us,  except  the  four  mentioned,  no  great  body  of 
civilization,  the  entire  work  of  no  people,  has  been  taken 
up  into  our  civilization  as  one  of  its  great  constituent 
parts.  Should  we  attempt  to  make  a  fifth  co-ordinate 
with  these  four,  we  should  need  to  group  together  the 
separate  contributions  of  the  various  oriental  nations 
made  at  widely  separated  times  during  the  whole  course 
of  history  and  having  no  connection  with  one  another. 
But  the  work  of  the  Greeks  as  an  organic  whole  lies  at 
the  foundation  of  all  later  progress. 

Of  these  four,  three  had  been  brought  together  before 
the  close  of  ancient  history.     By  its  conquest  of  the  clas- 
sical world  Rome  had  added  the  Greek  civilization  to  its\ 
own  and  prepared  the  way  for  the  introduction  of  the  '■ 
ideas  and  influences  which  came  from  Christianity,  and 
from  these  three  sources,  in  the  main,  had  been  formed  j 
that  practically  uniform  civilization  which  the  Germans  j 
found  throughout  the  Roman  Empire  when  they  took  pos- 
session of  it.     To  ascertain,  then,  what  the  middle  ages 
had  to  start  with,  and  the  contribution  of  the  ancient 
world  to   the  twentieth  century,  it  is    necessary  to  ex- 
amine, though  as  briefly  as  possible,  the  results  of  Greek 
and   of  Roman  work  and   the   elements  introduced  by 
Christianity. 

The  contribution  of  Greece  comes  naturally  first  in 
order.  This  was  made,  we  may  say,  exclusively  in  the 
departments  of  literature  and  art,  philosophy  and  science. 
Other  work  of  hers  which  may  have  had  a  permanent  in- 
fluence is  comparatively  insignificant.  The  work  of  the 
Greeks  in  literature  and  art  is  too  well  known  to  need 


WHAT   THE   MIDDLE   AGES   STARTED   WITH  1 7 

mcie  than  a  mention.  It  is  hardly  too  strong  to  say  that 
it  still  remains  the  richest  contribution  to  this  side  of  our 
civilization  made  by  any  people  in  the  course  of  history; 
and  it  is  very  easy  to  believe  that,  with  the  adoption  of 
more  appreciative  methods  of  study  in  our  schools,  it 
might  have  an  even  greater  influence  in  the  future  than 
it  has  ever  had  in  the  past,  for  it  works  always  upon  the 
spirit  of  the  individual  man.  It  was  this  part  of  Greek 
work  more  than  any  other  which  made  the  conquest  of 
the  Roman  world,  so  that  even  those  parts  of  Latin  lit- 
erature which  must  be  considered  something  more  than 
mere  copies  of  the  Greek  are  still  deeply  tinged  with  the 
Greek  influence. 

But  the  Greek  mind  was  as  active  and  as  creative  in 
the  fields  of  philosophy  and  of  science  as  in  those  of  lit- 
erature and  art.  Greek  thought  lies  at  the  foundation  of 
all  modern  speculation,  and  Aristotle  and  Plato  are  still 
"the  masters  of  those  who  know."  All  the  great  prob- 
lems of  philosophy  were  directly  or  indirectly  attacked  by 
the  Greeks,  and  their  varying  solutions  were  formed,  be- 
fore the  close  of  their  active  intellectual  life,  into  finely 
wrought  systems.  These  Greek  systems  of  thought  fur- 
nished the  Romans  with  their  philosophical  beliefs  and 
deeply  affected  the  speculative  theology  of  the  Christian 
church,  and  a  few  brief  sentences  from  one  of  them  fur- 
nished the  starting-point  for  the  endless  speculations  and 
the  barren  civil  wars  of  the  Realists  and  Nominalists  in 
the  later  middle  ages. 

Among  the  Greeks  philosophy  and  science  v/ere  very 
closely  related  to  one  another.  The  philosopher  was  apt 
to  be  the  student  of  natural  and  physical  science  as  well, 
and  it  was  thought  that  the  arrangement  of  the  universe 
and  the  component  elements  of  all  bodies  might  be  de- 
termined by  speculation.  This  was  especially  true  of  the 
early  periods  of  Greek  thinking.  It  is  characteristic  of 
all  early  thinking  that  it  turns  with  every  problem  to 


1 8  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

speculation  rather  than  to  investigation,  and  characteris- 
tic of  advancing  knowledge  that  it  is  constantly  enlarg- 
ing the  number  of  those  subjects  which,  it  is  clearly  seen, 
are  to  be  carried  to  a  real  solution  only  by  experiment 
and  observation. 

This  last  stage  of  knowledge  was  reached  by  the  Greeks 
more  or  less  completely  in  regard  to  a  great  variety  of 
subjects,  and  the  amount  and  character  of  their  scientific 
work  is  astonishing  considering  its  early  date.  Their  fa- 
vorite lines  of  work  were  mathematics  and  the  physical 
sciences,  physics  and  astronomy,  and  they  made  greater 
advances  in  these  than  in  the  natural-history  sciences 
like  zoology  and  botany.  This  scientific  work  hardly  af- 
fected the  Romans,  and  it  was  entirely  forgotten  by  the 
Christian  nations  of  the  West  during  the  middle  ages; 
but  when  modern  science  opened  in  the  Renaissance  age 
it  began  clearly  and  consciously  on  the  foundations  laid 
down  by  the  Greeks.  In  every  line  the  first  step  was  to 
find  out  what  the  ancients  had  known  and  then  to  begin 
a  new  progress  from  the  point  which  they  had  reached. 
The  first  medical  lectures  were  comments  on  the  Greek 
text,  almost  as  much  philological  as  scientific,  and  Coper- 
nicus's  first  step,  in  preparation  of  the  scientific  revolu- 
tion which  he  wrought,  was  to  search  the  classics  for  a 
theory  of  the  solar  system  different  from  the  Ptolemaic. 
This  is  true  of  all  the  sciences — of  those  in  which  the 
Greek  work  has  finally  been  thrown  aside  as  worthless  as 
of  those  in  which  it  still  forms  a  part.  The  science  of  the 
Greeks  was,  no  doubt,  in  many  cases  entirely  mistaken; 
but  these  mistakes  represent,  in  all  probability,  stages  of 
inquiry  through  which  the  mind  had  necessarily  to  pass 
in  reaching  the  truth,  and  the  work  of  the  Greeks,  though 
mistaken,  was  a  positive  gain. 

So  brief  and  general  a  statement  can  give  no  idea  of 
the  marvellous  character  of  Greek  work,  miraculous  al- 
most considering  its  early  date,  the  smallness  of  the  land, 


WHAT   THE    MIDDLE    AGES    STARTED    WITH  1 9 

and  the  few  generations  which  performed  it.  But  a  cor- 
rect appreciation  of  that  work  is  now  so  general  that  it 
may  sufiice  for  the  present  purpose.^ 

It  would  hardly  seem  necessary,  but  for  a  popular  mis- 
conception, to  add  to  this  account  of  the  work  of  the 
Greeks,  which  permanently  influenced  history,  the  nega- 
tive statement  that  none  of  this  work  was  political.  The 
history  of  the  Greek  republics  is  interesting  reading,  and 
it  seems  as  if  the  restless  activity  of  their  political  life 
ought  to  have  resulted  in  something  of  value  for  all  time; 
but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  did  not — unless  it  be  an  ex- 
ample of  warning.  The  Greeks  had  a  very  keen  interest 
in  politics — they  tried  all  sorts  of  political  experiments, 
and  they  show  us  an  immense  variety  of  political  forms. 
But  all  this  interest  was  intellectual  rather  than  practi- 
cal. It  was  the  keenness  of  the  competition,  the  excite- 
ment of  the  game,  which  had  the  greatest  charm  for 
them,  and  they  went  into  the  assembly  to  decide  a  polit- 
ical question  in  very  much  the  same  spirit  in  which  they 
went  into  the  theatre  to  see  a  new  play.  Scarcely  a  state 
can  be  found  among  them  which  makes  a  real  success  of 
any  government,  and  in  the  histories  of  most  of  them, 
revolutions  are  as  frequent  and  as  meaningless  as  any- 
where in  Latin  America.  They  were  not  practically  a 
creative  political  people,  and  not  a  single  political  expe- 
dient of  theirs  was  a  permanent  contribution  to  the  in- 

^  This  appreciation  of  Greek  work  is  even  coming,  in  some  cases,  to  ex- 
press itself  in  extravagant  forms.  Says  Renan,  in  the  Preface  of  his  His- 
tory of  Israel,  vol.  I:  "The  framework  of  human  culture  created  by  Greece 
is  susceptible  of  indefinite  enlargement,  but  it  is  complete  in  its  several  parts. 
Progress  will  consist  constantly  in  developing  what  Greece  has  conceived,  in 
executing  the  designs  which  she  has,  so  to  speak,  traced  out  for  us,"  p.  i. 
"I  will  even  add  that,  in  my  opinion,  the  greatest  miracle  on  record  is  Greece 
herself,"  p.  x.  Symonds  quotes,  with  apparent  approval,  as  follows:  "A 
writer  no  less  sober  in  his  philosophy  than  eloquent  in  his  language  has 
lately  asserted  that,  'except  the  blind  forces  of  nature,  nothing  moves  in 
this  world  which  is  not  Greek  in  its  origin.'" — {Revival  of  Learning,  p.  112.) 
The  passage  quoted  is  better  evidence,  certainly,  of  the  writer's  eloquence 
than  of  his  sobriety. 


^ 


20  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

stitutional  life  of  the  race,  as  was  the  imperial  govern- 
ment of  the  Romans  or  the  representative  system  of  the 
English.^  The  world  did  not  later  borrow  from  them  or 
build  on  their  foundations.  In  the  science  of  politics,  as 
in  other  sciences,  the  Greeks  did  extraordinary  work,  and 
in  this  way  may  have  had  some  influence,  untraceable  for 
the  most  part,  on  the  minds  of  statesmen  of  later  ages. 
The  Politics  of  Aristotle  has  been  called  as  modern  a  book 
as  Euclid,  and  it  is  a  modern  book  for  precisely  the  reason 
that  EucHd  is,  because  it  is  a  thoroughly  inductive  study 
based  upon  a  very  wide  investigation  of  political  facts. 
His  collection  of  constitutions  for  study  numbered  one 
hundred  and  fifty-eight.  But  the  science  of  politics  and 
the  creation  of  workable  political  institutions  are  two  dif- 
ferent things.^ 

When  we  turn  to  the  work  of  Rome  we  are  struck  with 
the  contrast  which  it  presents  to  that  of  Greece.  It 
would  seem  as  if  each  people  of  the  ancient  world  had 
had  its  special  line  of  work  to  accomplish,  and,  doing 
this,  had  not  been  able  to  do  anything  beyond.  At  all 
events,  Rome  was  strong  where  Greece  was  weak,  and 
weak  where  Greece  was  strong.  Her  work  was  political 
and  legal,   scarcely  at  all   artistic  or  intellectual.     We 

1  Even  federal  government  cannot  be  considered  an  exception  to  this 
statement.  As  a  part  of  the  world's  future  political  machinery  federal 
government  is  unquestionably  a  creation  of  the  United  States,  and  wherever 
else  in  history  the  federal  principle  may  have  been  in  use,  its  growth  into  a 
national  institution,  to  be  employed  on  a  vastly  larger  scale  than  ever  be- 
fore, is  too  plainly  a  natural  development  out  of  the  pecuhar  conditions  and 
circumstances  of  our  colonial  goverimients  ever  to  be  attributed  to  any 
foreign  influence. 

*  The  scholar  who  compares  carefully  the  Greek  constitutions  wdth  the 
Roman  will  undoubtedly  consider  the  former  to  be  finer  and  more  finished 
specimens  of  poUtical  work.  The  imperfect  and  incomplete  character 
which  the  Roman  constitution  presents,  at  almost  any  point  of  its  history, 
the  number  of  institutions  it  exhibits  which  appear  to  be  temporary  expe- 
dients merely,  are  necessary  results  of  its  method  of  growth  to  meet  de- 
mands as  they  rose  from  time  to  time;  they  are  evidences,  indeed,  of  its 
highly  practical  character. 


WHAT    THE    MIDDLE    AGES    STARTED    WITH  21 

could  not  well  afford  to  be  without  the  Latin  literature. 
In  some  departments — lyric  poetry,  satire,  and  history,  for 
instance — it  is  of  a  distinctly  high  order.  It  presents  us 
fine  specimens  of  elegance  and  polish,  and  there  will  prob- 
ably always  be  those  who  will  consider  these  the  most 
important  literary  qualities,  as  there  will  always  be  those 
who  rank  Pope  among  the  greatest  of  poets.  But,  com- 
pared with  the  Greek,  Latin  literature  lacks  originality, 
depth,  and  power.  The  ancients  themselves  were  not 
without  a  more  or  less  conscious  feeling  of  this  contrast, 
and  while  Latin  literature  is  saturated  with  the  influences 
of  Greek  thought,  scarcely  a  single,  if  indeed  any  instance 
can  be  found  until  the  very  last  days  of  Greek  literature, 
in  which  a  Greek  author  appears  conscious  of  the  exis- 
tence of  a  Latin  hterature. 

The  same  things  could  be  said  even  more  strongly  of 
Roman  art  and  science,  but  perhaps  Roman  philosophy 
exhibits  better  than  anything  else  the  contrast  between 
the  two  peoples.  There  was  no  original  Roman  philos- 
ophy. The  Roman  simply  thought  over  into  other  forms 
the  results  which  the  Greeks  had  reached.  A  good  ex- 
ample of  this  is  that  sort  of  eclectic  philosophizing  so  fa- 
miHar  to  us  in  the  works  of  Cicero — a  rhetorical  popular- 
izing of  what  seemed  to  him  the  best  in  Greek  thinking 
without  any  original  speculation  of  his  own,  at  its  best 
nothing  more  than  a  sympathetic  comment  or  paraphrase. 
This  difference  between  the  two  races  is  seen  still  more 
clearly  in  that  form  of  Greek  philosophy  which  the  Ro- 
mans cultivated  with  especial  fondness,  and  in  which  they 
produced  two  such  famous  names  as  Seneca  and  Marcus 
Aurelius.  It  was  the  intensely  ethical  character  of  Sto- 
icism which  attracted  them,  with  its  ideal  of  strong  man- 
hood and  its  principles  so  naturally  applicable  to  the  cir- 
cumstances in  which  a  cultivated  Roman  found  himself 
under  the  early  empire.  And  it  was  on  this  purely  prac- 
tical side  that  the  Roman  cultivated  Stoicism.    He  praisQf' 


22  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

virtue  in  earnest  phrases,  he  exhorted  himself  and  other 
people  to  right  living,  he  tried  to  make  it  a  missionary 
philosophy  and  to  bring  its  guidance  and  support  to  the 
help  of  men  in  general,  he  turned  its  abstract  formulas 
into  specific  precepts  of  law,  but  he  did  not  develop  it 
as  a  science  or  a  philosophy.  The  whole  Roman  mind 
was  practical  and  not  at  all  aesthetic  or  speculative. 

And  it  was  on  this  practical  side  that  the  Roman  mind 
found  its  mission.  The  great  work  of  Rome  for  the  world 
was  political  and  legal.  Whatever  rank  we  give  to  Greece 
for  its  literature,  we  must  give  an  equally  high  rank  to 
Rome  for  the  results  of  its  genius  for  government.  If  it 
may  be  true,  as  is  sometimes  said,  that  in  the  course  of 
history  there  is  no  literature  which  rivals  the  Greek  ex- 
cept the  English,  it  is  perhaps  even  more  true  that  the 
Anglo-Saxon  is  the  only  race  which  can  be  placed  beside 
the  Roman  in  creative  power  in  law  and  politics.  A 
somewhat  detailed  examination  of  the  work  which  Rome 
did  in  this  direction  is  demanded  because  the  foundation 
fact  of  all  modern  civilization  is  the  Roman  Empire,  or 
more  accurately,  perhaps,  it  is  the  external  framework  of 
all  later  history. 

The  opportunity  to  exert  such  an  important  political 
influence  came  to  Rome,  of  course,  as  a  result  of  her  mili- 
tary successes  and  her  wide  conquests;  but  these  are 
themselves  not  the  least  of  the  evidences  of  her  ruHng 
genius.  It  was  an  opportimity  which  none  but  a  great 
political  people  could  have  created  or  could  have  used  to 
any  good  purpose  when  it  came  to  them.  Rome's  con- 
quests were  not  mere  military  occupations.  After  a  gen- 
eration or  two  the  peoples  which  had  most  stubbornly 
resisted  her  advance  had  become  Roman,  those  of  them 
at  least  who  were  not  already  in  possession  of  a  civiliza- 
tion as  high  as  her  own.  From  the  very  beginning  of  her 
career,  in  the  absorption  of  the  little  rival  city  states 
around  her  in  Italy,  she  treated  her  subjects  as  friends 


WHAT   THE    MIDDLE   AGES    STARTED    WITH  23 

and  not  as  conquered  enemies.  She  allowed  the  utmost 
local  independence  and  freedom  of  self-government  pos- 
sible under  her  strong  control  of  all  general  affairs.  She  did 
not  interfere  with  local  prejudices  or  superstitions  where 
they  were  not  harmful  to  the  common  good.  She  knew 
how  to  make  her  subjects  understand  that  her  interests 
were  identical  with  theirs  and  that  their  best  good  was 
to  be  found  in  strengthening  her  power,  as  Hannibal  dis- 
covered to  his  cost.  She  opened  the  line  of  promotion 
and  success  beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  their  own  local- 
ity to  ambitious  spirits  throughout  the  provinces.  Bal- 
bus,  a  Spaniard,  was  consul  in  Rome  forty  years  before 
the  Christian  era.  She  made  no  conscious  attempt  any- 
where to  Romanize  the  provincials,  nor  any  use  of  violent 
methods  to  mould  them  into  a  common  race;  but  she 
thoroughly  convinced  them  by  reasonable  evidence,  by  its 
constant  presence  and  its  beneficial  results,  of  the  supe- 
riority of  her  civilization  to  theirs.  She  won  them  com- 
pletely by  the  peace  and  good  order  which  she  everywhere 
kept,  by  the  decided  advantages  of  a  common  language, 
a  common  law,  common  commercial  arrangements,  a  uni- 
form coinage,  vastly  improved  means  of  intercommuni- 
cation, and  by  no  means  least  of  all,  by  common  treat- 
ment for  the  men  of  every  race.  The  literature  and  the 
inscriptions  give  us  abundant  evidence  of  the  affection- 
ate regard  in  which  this  Roman  rule  was  held  in  every 
quarter.  That  such  good  goverimient  was  without  ex- 
ceptions is  certainly  not  maintained,  and  it  gradually 
changed  into  a  bad  government  as  time  went  on  and  as 
the  task  of  absorbing  an  unceasing  stream  of  new  barba- 
rians proved  too  great  for  the  exhausted  empire.  But 
even  where  Rome's  rule  was  least  favorable  to  the  sub- 
ject, it  was,  until  the  last  age,  much  better  than  the  con- 
ditions which  had  anywhere  preceded  it,  and  the  work  of 
Romanization  was  completed  before  it  became  anywhere  a 
serious  evil. 


24  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

The  result  of  such  a  policy  was  speedily  apparent.  It 
was  a  process  of  absorption  into  a  common  Roman  race 
willingly  undergone  by  the  provincial.  If  there  was  any 
conscious  effort  to  bring  about  such  a  result  it  was  on  the 
part  of  the  provincial,  not  on  that  of  the  government, 
and  he  certainly  made  no  conscious  effort  to  prevent 
it.  And  this  was  a  genuine  absorption,  not  a  mere  con- 
tented and  quiet  living  under  a  foreign  government.  The 
local  dress,  religion,  manners,  family  names,  language, 
and  literature,  political  and  legal  institutions,  and  race 
pride  almost  or  entirely  disappeared,  did  disappear  for 
all  except  the  lowest  classes,  and  everything  became 
Roman — became  really  Roman,  so  that  neither  they  nor 
the  Romans  of  blood  ever  felt  in  any  way  the  difference 
of  descent,  as  we  never  do  in  the  case  of  the  thoroughly 
Americanized  German,  whose  family  name  alone  betrays 
his  origin.  Gaul,  Spain,  and  Africa  have  all  been  called 
more  Roman  than  Rome  itself.  Some  of  the  provinces 
possessed  schools  of  rhetoric,  that  is,  training  in  the  use 
of  the  Latin  tongue,  so  famous  that  they  v/ere  sought  by 
pupils  from  all  parts  of  the  empire.  Gaul  furnished  some 
of  the  most  celebrated  grammarians  of  the  Latin  lan- 
guage, and  that  distinguished  Spanish  family  must  not 
be  forgotten  which  gave  the  two  Senecas  and  Lucan  to 
Latin  literature,  and  the  proconsul  Gallio  to  Christian 
history,  in  the  incident  recorded  in  the  Acts,  which  illus- 
trates so  strikingly  the  attitude  of  the  cultured  Roman 
toward  the  earliest  Christianity.  In  political  life  the  case 
of  Balbus  has  been  mentioned.  Before  the  first  century 
closed  another  Spaniard — Nerva — had  become  emperor, 
and  as  time  went  on,  the  emperors  were,  more  and  more 
frequently,  drawn  from  the  provincials.  In  the  days 
when  the  empire  was  falling  to  pieces  and  local  com- 
manders were  taking  advantage  of  their  military  strength 
to  make  themselves  independent  rulers,  nowhere  was 
there  any  return  to  an  earlier  national  autonomy,  but 
everywhere  the  commander  became  a  Roman  emperor, 


WHAT    THE    MIDDLE    AGES    STARTED    WITH  2$ 

and  reproduced,  as  perfectly  as  circumstances  would 
admit,  the  Roman  arrangements,  court  forms,  officials, 
senate,  and  even  coinage,  and,  more  surprising  still,  in 
the  very  last  days  of  the  empire  some  of  its  most  earnest 
and  devoted  defenders  against  their  own  race  were  Ger- 
mans or  of  German  descent. 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  evidences  of  the  com- 
pleteness of  this  Romanization,  but  perhaps  language 
forms  the  best  example  of  all,  because  it  is  one  of  the 
things  which  a  race  trying  to  maintain  a  separate  exis- 
tence would  most  consciously  strive  to  retain,  as  witness 
the  Welsh  of  to-day,  and  because  the  evidence  remains 
clear  to  our  own  time,  in  the  speech  of  modern  Europe, 
that  the  national  languages  passed  out  of  use  and  Latin 
became  the  universal  language  from  the  mouth  of  the 
Douro  to  the  mouth  of  the  Danube.  Not  that  this  hap- 
pened for  every  man.  In  the  remoter  country  districts 
and  among  the  lowest  classes  the  national  language  long 
remained  as  a  local  dialect.  In  some  of  the  most  inac- 
cessible parts  the  national  speech  permanently  survived, 
as  among  the  Basques  and  in  Brittany.  But  Latin  be- 
came the  universal  language  of  all  the  well-to-do  classes. 
Nor  was  this  change  brought  about  because  any  one  con- 
sciously dropped  the  use  of  his  native  language  and 
adopted  Latin  in  its  place.'  It  simply  became  a  very 
great  convenience  for  all  the  ordinary  purposes  of  hfe  for 
everybody  to  know  the  Latin  in  addition  to  his  native 
tongue.  He  learned  it  with  no  expectation  of  giving  up 
his  own,  and  doubtless  for  a  generation  or  two  the  two 
languages  would  go  on  side  by  side  as  generally  spoken 
languages,  and  the  local  speech  would  only  gradually  be- 
come unfashionable  and  disappear.  Indeed,  in  some 
cases,  as  for  example  in  the  Punic  of  North  Africa,  we 
know  that  a  very  considerable  literary  activity  contin- 
ued in  the  local  language  after  Latin  had  become  univer- 
sally spoken.^ 

'  Schiller,  Kaiserzeit,  vol.  I,  p.  887. 


26  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

In  one  part  of  the  empire  there  is  an  apparent  excep- 
tion to  this  absorption  of  the  native  races  into  the  Roman. 
In  the  eastern  half  of  the  ancient  world  another  language 
had  become  universal  and  another  civilization  almost  as 
prevalent  as  the  Roman  in  the  West.  The  historical  rea- 
son for  this  is  familiar.  At  the  time  when  the  political 
life  of  Greece  proper  was  reaching  its  lowest  decline  came 
the  Grecized  Macedonian,  and  with  the  mihtary  supe- 
riority of  the  Greek  soldier  constructed  a  great  oriental 
empire,  and,  although  this  empire  was  scarcely  at  all 
Greek  in  its  poUtical  or  institutional  life — was,  indeed, 
in  many  ways  the  exact  opposite  of  anything  which  the 
genuine  Greek  political  life  could  have  produced— yet  the 
great  superiority  of  the  Greek  intellectual  civilization 
and  the  fact  that  Greek  was  the  language  of  the  govern- 
ment and  of  the  ruling  class  made  the  Greek  language 
and  Greek  ideas  universal. ^  These  were  thoroughly  es- 
tabHshed  throughout  the  East  at  the  time  of  the  Roman 
conquest,  so  that  Rome  came  in  contact  there  with  a 
universal  civilization  as  high  as  her  own.  Naturally  it 
retained  its  place.  Except  politically  Rome  had  nothing 
to  offer  the  East,  and  there  was  not  that  need  of  a  uni- 
fying and  assimilating  work  there  which  Rome  had  per- 
formed in  the  West.  But  politically  Rome  had  much  to 
offer,  and  her  political  influence  became  as  decided  and 
as  permanent  in  the  East  as  in  the  West.  Law  and  gov- 
ernmental institutions  and  forms  became  entirely  Roman. 
Latin  became  the  language  of  government  and  law  and 
remained  so  until  the  end  of  the  sixth  century.  In  Greek 
compendiums  and  translations  the  legislation  of  Justin- 
ian remained  the  basis  of  the  law  of  the  later  Eastern 
Empire.     Even  when  so  distant  a  portion  of  the  Roman 

*  The  New  Testament  is  a  familiar  proof  of  this  in  the  matter  of  language. 
Such  passages  as  Acts  14  :  ii  and  22  :  2  are  cited  as  indicating,  in  a  very 
interesting  way,  how  the  native  language  continued  as  a  dialect  alongside 
the  universal  language. 


WHAT   THE    MIDDLE   AGES    STARTED   WITH  27 

dominion  as  Palmyra  attempted,  in  the  third  century, 
to  found  a  new  oriental  state,  it  did  it  under  political 
forms  that  were  Roman, ^  and  the  subjects  of  the  mod- 
ern Turkish  Empire  have  had  no  reason  to  rejoice  in  what 
their  rulers  learned  of  the  Romans  in  the  matter  of  taxa- 
tion. The  exception  presented  by  the  East  to  the  uni- 
versal Romanization  of  the  ancient  world  is  more  appar- 
ent than  real. 

In  this  power  of  assimilation  the  Roman  presented,  as 
has  already  been  suggested,  a  marked  contrast  to  the 
Greek.  To  Athens  had  been  offered,  in  the  Confederacy 
of  Delos,  the  same  opportunity  which  came  to  Rome. 
Sparta  had  it  again  after  the  Peloponnesian  War.  The 
difficulties  in  the  way  were  but  little  greater  than  those 
which  confronted  Rome  in  Italy;  but  neither  Greek  state 
was  able  to  take  any  step  towards  a  real  consolidation  of 
Greece,  and  the  empires  of  both  fell  to  pieces  at  the  first 
opportunity.  This  difference  and  even  the  reasons  for 
it  were  so  obvious  that  they  did  not  escape  the  notice  of 
the  observers  of  those  times.  The  remarkable  speech 
which  Tacitus,  in  the  twenty-fourth  chapter  of  the 
Eleventh  Book  of  the  Annals,  puts  into  the  mouth  of  the 
Emperor  Claudius  illustrates  so  many  of  the  points 
which  have  just  been  discussed,  as  well  as  this,  that  I 
venture  to  insert  a  portion  of  it.  The  question  having 
arisen  as  to  the  admission  of  Gauls  into  the  senate,  and  va- 
rious arguments  being  advanced  against  it,  Claudius  said: 
"My  own  ancestors,  the  most  remote  of  whom,  Clausus, 
though  of  Sabine  origin,  was  adopted  into  the  number 
of  the  Roman  citizens,  and  also  of  the  patricians,  exhort 
me  to  follow  the  same  plan  in  managing  the  state,  and 
transfer  to  ourselves  whatever  there  may  be  anywhere 
that  is  good.  For  I  remember  that  we  had  the  Julii  from 
Alba,  .  .  .  and,  not  to  mention  every  ancient  case,  from 
Etruria  and  Lucania  and  all  Italy  men  were  received  into 
'  Schiller,  Kaiserzeit,  vol.  I,  p.  887. 


28  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  senate,  and  finally  even  from  as  far  as  the  Alps,  and 
this,  too,  was  not  done  for  single  men  alone,  but  lands 
and  races  became  one  with  us  and  our  state  grew  strong 
and  flourished.  .  .  .  Are  we  sorry  that  the  Balbi  came 
to  us  from  Spain,  or  men  not  less  distinguished  from 
Gallia  Narbonensis?  Their  posterity  are  still  with  us, 
nor  do  they  yield  to  us  in  love  for  this  fatherland.  Was 
anything  else  the  ruin  of  the  Lacedasmonians  and  Athe- 
nians, though  they  were  strong  in  arms,  than  that  they 
held  off  from  them  as  aliens  those  whom  they  had  con- 
quered? But  Romulus,  the  founder  of  our  city,  was  so 
wise  that  upon  the  same  day  he  treated  many  people 
first  as  enemies  and  then  as  citizens.  Foreigners  have 
ruled  over  us,  and  to  intrust  the  magistracies  to  the  sons 
of  freedmen  is  not,  as  many  think,  a  recent  thing,  but  was 
frequently  done  in  former  times."  ^ 

This  subject  deserves  even  fuller  statement  and  illus- 
tration because  it  was  by  means  of  this  thorough  Roman- 
ization  of  the  world  that  the  work  of  Rome  obtained  its 
decided  and  permanent  influence  on  all  later  history. 
Without  this  it  must  have  perished.  It  was  the  com- 
pleteness of  this  assimilation  which  fixed  the  Roman  ideas 
so  firmly  in  the  minds  of  all  her  subjects  that  the  later 
flood  of  German  barbarism,  which  swept  over  the  empir^^ 

^  Still  earlier,  a  Greek,  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  in  his  Roman  Antiq- 
uiiies,  book  II,  chaps.  XV^I  and  XVII,  after  describing  the  treatment  of  their 
subjects  by  the  Romans,  which  had  "not  a  little  contributed  to  raise  them 
to  the  empire  they  have  acquired,"  says:  "When  I  compare  the  customs 
of  the  Greeks  with  these,  I  can  find  no  reason  to  extol  either  those  of  the 
Lacedjemonians,  or  of  the  Thebans,  or  even  of  the  Athenians,  who  value 
themselves  the  most  for  their  wisdom;  all  who,  Jealous  of  their  nobility 
and  communicating  to  none  or  to  very  few  the  privileges  of  their  cities  .  .  . 
were  so  far  from  receiving  any  advantage  from  this  haughtiness  that  they 
became  the  greatest  sufferers  by  it." — (Translation  of  Edward  Spellman, 
London,  1758.) 

A  recent  writer  asserts  that  the  constitution  of  Athens,  as  described  by 
Aristotle,  rendered  a  great  Athenian  empire  impossible  because  it  did  not 
allow  sufficient  rights  to  subjects  and  allies.  {Preussische  J ahrhiicher ,  Bd. 
68,  pp.  1 19-120.) 


WHAT    THE    MIDDLE   AGES    STARTED   WITH  29 

was  not  able  to  obliterate  them,  but  must  even,  in  the 
end,  yield  itself  to  their  influence. 

But  this  is  by  no  means  the  only  important  result 
which  followed  from  the  unity  which  Rome  established 
in  the  ancient  world.  Most  obviously,  Rome  gave  to  all 
the  West  a  higher  civilization  than  it  had  had.  She 
placed  the  provinces,  within  a  generation  or  two,  in  a 
position  which  it  would  have  taken  them  centuries  of 
unaided  development  to  reach.  This  is  very  clear,  for 
instance,  in  the  matter  of  government  and  order,  to  any 
reader  of  Caesar's  Gallic  War.  And  so  it  was  upon  every 
side  of  civilization. 

This  empire  also  held  back  the  German  conquest  for 
three  centuries  or  more.  That  process  of  armed  migra- 
tion which  the  Cimbri  and  Teutones  foreshadowed  at  the 
end  of  the  second  century  e.  c,  and  which  Ariovistus 
had  certainly  begun  in  Caesar's  time,  Rome  stopped;  and 
it  could  only  be  begun  again  by  Alaric  and  Clovis.  Dur- 
ing all  the  intervening  time  the  Germans  were  surging 
against  the  Roman  barriers;  from  the  time  of  Marcus 
Aurelius  the  struggle  against  them  was  a  desperate  one, 
and  it  became  finally  a  hopeless  one.  But  these  four 
centuries  which  Rome  had  gained  were  enough.  During 
them  the  provinces  were  thoroughly  Romanized,  Chris- 
tianity spread  itself  throughout  the  empire  and  took  on 
that  compact  and  strong  organization  which  was  so  vi- 
tally necessary  in  the  confusion  of  the  following  time,^ 
and  the  Roman  law  received  its  scientific  development 
and  its  precise  statement. 

The  historical  importance  of  the  mere  fact  that  it  was 
an  organic  unity  which  Rome  established,  and  not  sim- 

'"It  may  almost  seem  as  if  the  continuance  of  the  Roman  Empire  in 
the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  had  only  the  purpose  of  preparing  the  way 
for  Christianity.  For  as  soon  as  this  had  penetrated  into  all  the  provinces 
and  become  strong  enough  to  maintain  its  own  existence  against  rebellion 
and  heresy,  the  empire  became  a  prey  to  the  Barbarians." — (Wilhelm 
Arnold,  Deutsche  Geschichte,  Frankische  Zeit,  I,  p.  164.) 


30  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

ply  a  collection  of  fragments  artificially  held  together  by 
military  force,  that  the  civiUzed  world  was  made,  as  it 
were,  one  nation,  cannot  be  overstated.  Indeed,  it  is 
quite  impossible  to  state  it  so  that  its  full  significance 
can  be  seen  in  the  words.  The  historic  sense,  the  scientific 
imagination  of  the  reader,  must  come  to  his  aid.  That 
this  was  the  character  of  the  union  which  Rome  estab- 
lished has  already  been  illustrated.  It  was  a  union  not 
in  externals  merely  but  in  every  department  of  thought 
and  action;  and  it  was  so  thorough,  the  Gaul  became  so 
completely  a  Roman,  that  when  the  Roman  government 
disappeared  he  had  no  idea  of  being  anything  else  than  a 
Roman.  The  immediate  result  of  this  was  that  the  Ro- 
manized provincial  began  at  once  the  process  of  Roman- 
izing his  German  conquerors,  and  succeeded  everywhere 
where  he  had  a  fair  chance;  and  it  was  because  of  this 
that,  despite  the  fall  of  Rome,  Roman  institutions  were 
perpetuated.^ 

The  more  remote  result  of  it  was  that  strong  influence 
which  this  idea  of  unity,  of  a  single  world-embracing 
empire,  exercised  over  the  minds  of  men  through  all  the 
early  middle  ages.  It  was  this,  together  with  the  influ- 
ence of  that  more  real  union — the  great  united  church 
whose  existence  had  been  made  possible  only  by  this 
Roman  unity— which  kept  Europe  from  falling  into  iso- 
lated fragments  in  the  days  of  feudalism.  More  remotely 
still,  that  modern  federation  of  nations  which  we  call 
Christendom,  based  upon  so  large  a  stock  of  common 

^  Just  as  in  our  own  case,  it  is  probable  that  tlie  larger  part  of  those  who 
appear  in  our  census  reports  as  of  foreign  parentage  are  foreign  in  no  proper 
sense.  They  are  an  important  part  of  our  Americanizing  force.  As  we 
know  by  daily  observation,  the  Americanized  foreigner  is  a  powerful  aid  to 
us  in  assimilating  the  recent  foreigner,  and  the  Scandinavians  of  our  North- 
west, or,  with  most  marvellous  certainty,  when  we  consider  the  conditions, 
the  negro  of  the  South  could  be  trusted  to  perpetuate  our  poUtical  ideas  and 
institutions,  if  our  republic  fell,  as  surely  as  the  Gaul  did  his  adopted  insti- 
tutions. Witness  the  Republic  of  Liberia,  notwithstanding  all  its  limited 
success,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  political  facts  of  history. 


WHAT   THE    MIDDLE    AGES    STARTED   WITH  3 1 

ideas  and  traditions,  is  the  outgrowth  of  Roman  unity. 
It  would  very  Hkely  have  been  created  in  time  by  some- 
thing else  if  not  by  this,  but  as  history  actually  is,  it  was 
done  by  Rome. 

Finally,  this  Roman  unity  made  possible  the  spread  of 
Christianity.  With  the  religious  ideas  which  prevailed 
in  the  ancient  world  before  the  advent  of  Rome,  the  mo- 
ment a  Christian  missionary  had  attempted  to  proclaim 
his  religion  outside  the  bounds  of  Judea,  he  would  have 
been  arrested  and  executed  as  attempting  a  revolution 
in  the  state.  It  needed  the  toleration  throughout  the 
empire  of  each  national  religion  alongside  every  other, 
and  the  melting  of  all  local  national  governments  whose 
life  and  prosperity  had  been  thought  to  be  bound  up  in 
the  prosperity  of  the  national  religion,  into  a  great  all- 
containing  government  which  could  afford  to  tolerate  all 
forms  of  religion  which  had  been  proved  by  the  logic  of 
war  to  be  inferior  to  its  own,  it  needed  these  results  of 
the  conquests  of  Rome  before  Christianity  could  become 
universal.  As  says  Renan:  "It  is  not  easy  to  imagine 
how  in  the  face  of  an  Asia  Minor,  a  Greece,  an  Italy, 
split  up  into  a  hundred  small  republics;  of  a  Gaul,  a  Spain, 
an  Africa,  an  Egypt,  in  possession  of  their  old  national 
institutions,  the  apostles  could  have  succeeded,  or  even 
how  their  project  could  have  been  started.  The  unity 
of  the  empire  was  the  condition  precedent  of  all  religious 
proselytism  on  a  grand  scale  if  it  was  to  place  itself  above 
the  nationalities."  ^ 

In  these  ways  the  conquest  of  the  world  by  Rome  and 
the  use  which  it  had  known  how  to  make  of  it  decisively 
influenced  the  whole  course  of  history.  But,  in  addition 
to  this,  some  of  the  specific  features  of  Rome's  political 
work  have  had  very  important  results.  That  one  of 
these  which  has  had  the  longest  continued  direct  influence 

1  Report  of  Hibbert  Lecture,  in  London  Times  of  April  7,  1880,  p.  11; 
Renan,  English  Conferences  translation  of  C.  E.  Clement,  p.  21. 


32  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

is  the  Roman  law;  indeed,  it  is  a  fact  of  great  interest 
in  this  connection  that  the  direct  influence  of  the  Roman 
law  is  even  yet  extending. 

The  very  considerable  body  of  law  which  had  grown 
up  in  the  days  of  the  republic,  somewhat  narrow  and 
harsh  from  the  circumstances  of  its  tribal  origin,  passed 
in  the  empire  under  conditions  which  favored  both  im- 
portant modifications  of  its  character  and  very  rapid  and 
wide  extension.  No  longer  the  law  of  a  little  state,  or  of 
a  single  fairly  homogeneous  people,  but  of  a  great  empire 
and  of  numerous  totally  distinct  races,  the  circumstances 
of  the  case,  together  with  the  native  Roman  genius,  would 
have  led,  without  any  foreign  influence,  to  a  very  decided 
softening  of  the  ruder  features  of  the  law  and  its  develop- 
ment in  the  direction  of  general  justice.  But  just  at  this 
time  came  Stoicism  with  its  ethical  teaching,  so  deeply 
interesting  to  the  Roman  mind,  and  with  many  of  its 
precepts  shaped  as  if  deliberately  intended  for  applica- 
tion in  some  system  of  law.  These  are  the  sources  of 
that  very  decided  amelioration  and  ethical  and  scientific 
reorganization  of  the  Roman  law  which,  beginning  soon 
after  the  opening  of  the  second  century,  went  on  so  long  as 
it  was  a  Hving  system.  It  must  be  recognized  as  clearly 
established  that  in  this  process  of  humanizing  the  law 
Christianity  had  no  share  which  can  be  traced  until  we 
reach  the  time  of  the  Christian  empire  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury. Then,  although  the  humanizing  work  goes  on 
upon  the  lines  already  laid  down,  some  influence  of  gen- 
uine Christian  ideas  may  be  traced,  as  well  as  of  theo- 
logical and  ecclesiastical  notions. 

Growing  in  the  two  ways  in  which  all  great  systems  of 
law  grow — by  statute  enactment  and  by  the  establish- 
ment of  precedents  and  the  decision  of  cases,  containing 
both  written  and  unwritten  law — the  body  of  this  law 
had  come  to  be  by  the  fourth  Christian  century  enor- 
mous and  very  difficult  to  use.     Scattered  in  innumer- 


WHAT    THE   MIDDLE   AGES    STARTED   WITH  33 

able  treatises,  full  of  repetitions  and  superfluous  matter, 
not  without  contradictions,  and  entirely  without  the  help 
of  printing  and  indexes,  which  do  so  much  to  aid  us  in 
our  struggle  with  a  similar  mass  of  law,  the  necessity  of 
codification  forced  itself  upon  the  Roman  mind  as  it  may, 
perhaps,  in  time  upon  the  Anglo-Saxon.  We  have,  first, 
attempts  at  codification  by  private  individuals — the  Gre- 
gorian and  Hermogenian  codes,  probably  of  the  fourth 
century,  and  containing  only  imperial  constitutions,  that 
is,  statute  law.  Then  we  have  the  Theodosian  code,  of 
the  Emperor  Theodosius  II,  published  in  a.  d.  438,  con- 
taining also  only  statute  law,  though  it  seems  likely  that 
the  emperor  intended  to  include,  before  the  close  of  the 
work,  the  whole  body  of  the  law.  This  code,  formed 
just  at  the  time  of  the  occupation  of  the  Western  Empire 
by  the  Germans,  was  of  very  decided  influence  on  all  the 
early  middle  ages.  Then  came  the  final  codification  in 
the  formation  of  the  Corpus  Juris  Civilis  by  the  Em- 
peror Justinian  between  the  years  528  and  534. 
This  comprised: 

I.  The  Code  proper,  containing  the  imperial  constitu- 
tions or  statute  law  then  in  force,  reduced  to  its  lowest 
terms  by  cutting  away  all  unnecessary  matter,  repetitions, 
and  contradictions,  and  covering  chiefly,  though  not  ex- 
clusively, public  and  ecclesiastical  law. 

II.  The  Digest,  or  Pandects,  containing  in  the  same 
reduced  form  the  common  or  case  law,  comprised  mainly 
in  the  responsa  of  the  jurisconsults,  similar  in  character 
to  the  decisions  of  our  judges,  and  covering  chiefly  pri- 
vate law,  and  especially  the  law  of  property.' 

III.  The  Institutes,  a  brief  statement  of  the  principles 

^  This  is  what  we  should  call  in  our  system  "unwritten  law,"  though  the 
Romans  themselves  reckoned  the  responsa  in  the  written  law  {Institutes,  I, 
ii,  3),  and  they  had  under  the  empire  in  a  certain  limited  way  the  force  of 
statute  law.  Until  towards  the  close  of  republican  times,  a  classification 
which  makes  public  law  synonymous  with  statute,  and  private  with  com- 
mon law,  is  accurate  enough,  but  it  is  not  so  for  the  days  of  the  empire. 


34  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

of  the  law  intended  as  a  text-book  for  law  students  and 
perhaps  even  for  more  general  use  as  an  introduction  to 
a  knowledge  of  the  law. 

IV.  The  Novellae,  or  Novels,  imperial  constitutions, 
covering  various  subjects,  issued  by  Justinian  himself 
after  the  completion  of  the  Code.  These  are  usually 
spoken  of  as  if  formed  into  a  definite  collection  as  a  part 
of  the  Corpus  Juris.  This,  however,  was  not  done  by 
Justinian,  nor  apparently  ever  in  any  authoritative  way, 
and  the  collections  of  the  Novels  which  have  come  down 
to  us  differ  somewhat  from  one  another  in  their  contents. 

The  most  important  effect  of  this  codification  from  our 
point  of  view  was  this:  By  it  the  enormous  and  scat- 
tered mass  of  the  law,  which  would  in  that  form  un- 
doubtedly have  perished — as  a  historical  fact  the  books 
from  which  it  was  made  did  mostly  perish — was  boiled 
down  into  clear  and  concise  statement  and  into  a  few 
volumes  which  could  easily  be  preserved.  By  means  of 
the  definite  form  thus  given  it,  being  put  into  a  book 
which  can  be  studied  to-day  just  as  it  existed  in  the 
sixth  century,  there  was  secured  a  direct  and  immediate 
contact  of  the  principles  of  the  Roman  law  with  every 
future  generation. 

The  specific  influence  of  this  law  is  not  difficult  to 
trace.  Soon  after  the  revival  of  its  study  in  the  law 
schools  of  Italy,  in  the  twelfth  century,  the  political  con- 
ditions of  Europe  offered  an  unusual  opportunity  to  the 
class  of  thoroughly  trained  lawyers  which  was  thus  formed. 
Under  their  influence  this  clear  and  scientific  body  of  law 
was  substituted  in  many  of  the  continental  states  for  the 
native  law,  which,  owing  to  the  peculiar  circum.stances  of 
the  feudal  age,  was  even  more  confused  and  unscientific 
than  customary  law  usually  is;  or,  if  in  some  cases  not 
actually  substituted  for  it,  became  the  law  for  cases  not 
already  covered  by  the  customary  law.  This  substitution 
was  greatly  aided  by  the  fact  that  in  these  feudal  states 


WHAT   THE    MIDDLE   AGES    STARTED   WITH  35 

absolute  monarchies  were  forming  which  found  a  natural 
ally  and  assistant  in  the  spirit  of  the  Roman  law.  As  a 
result,  this  law  is  still  a  part  of  the  living  and  actual 
law  of  many  modern  nations.  Owing  to  the  French  and 
Spanish  colonial  occupation,  it  became  the  law  of  a  part 
of  the  territory  now  within  the  United  States  and  forms 
the  actual  law  of  Louisiana  in  the  Code  of  1824,  which  is 
English  in  language  but  Roman  in  law  and  technical 
expressions.  Even  the  general  Anglo-Saxon  law,  which 
retained  its  native  character  and  its  power  of  natural  self- 
development,  has  been  profoundly  influenced  in  particu- 
lar doctrines — like  that  of  inheritance,  for  example — by 
the  Roman  law.  Still  more  remarkable  is  the  fact  that, 
in  consequence  of  its  permanence  in  the  Eastern  Empire, 
this  law  was  taken  up  by  the  Mohammedan  states  and 
became  the  most  important  source  of  their  law,  contrib- 
uting, it  is  asserted,  far  more  than  the  Koran  to  the  legal 
system  which  now  rules  throughout  the  Mohammedan 
world. 

Apart  from  the  direct  influence  of  the  system  as  a 
whole,  many  of  the  concise  maxims  of  the  Roman  law, 
from  their  almost  proverbial  character,  came  to  have  an 
influence  on  later  ideas  and  facts.  The  most  famihar 
instance  of  this  is  the  absolutist  maxim.  Quod  principi 
placuit  legis  habet  vigor  em, ^  which  exerted  a  considerable 
influence  in  favor  of  the  usurpation  of  legislative  rights 
by  the  monarchs  at  the  close  of  the  middle  ages^  and,  to- 
gether with  the  marked  centralizing  tendency  of  the  sys- 
tem as  a  whole,  became  one  of  the  most  effective  causes 
of  the  formation  of  absolute  monarchies  in  the  continen- 
tal states.^ 

*  Institutes,  I,  ii,  6. 

*  An  example  of  the  influence  of  such  maxims,  of  especial  interest  to 
Americans,  is  to  be  found  in  the  phrase  "All  men  are  created  equal,"  and 
like  phrases,  which  are  of  so  frequent  occurrence  in  the  political  documents 
and  the  writings  of  the  time  of  our  Revolution.  These  are  maxims  which 
passed  into  the  Roman  law  from  Stoicism.     They  came  into  new  and  very 


36  MEDIEVAL    CIVILIZATION 

In  another  great  field  the  influence  of  the  Roman  law 
was  equally  creative — in  the  law  and  theology  of  the 
church.  The  great  system  of  canon  law  which  grew  up 
in  the  government  and  administration  of  the  church  dur- 
ing medieval  times  is  based  almost  exclusively  on  the 
Roman  law,  and  in  its  practical  interpretation  in  the 
church  courts  the  principle  was  admitted  that  whatever 
was  ambiguous  or  obscure  in  it  was  to  be  explained  by 
reference  to  the  Roman  law.  In  the  theology  of  the 
Western  church  the  influence  of  the  Roman  law  was  less 
direct  but  hardly  less  important.  "In  following  down 
the  stream  of  Latin  theology,  from  Augustine  to  the 
latest  of  the  schoolmen,  we  might  trace  in  the  handling 
of  such  topics  as  sin,  the  atonement,  penance,  indul- 
gences, absolution,  the  silent  influence  of  the  conceptions 
which  Roman  jurisprudence  had  made  current.""-  The 
same  strong  influence  may  be  traced  in  the  terminology 
and  the  ideas  of  many  other  sciences,  and  in  such  ethico- 
political  notions  as  the  divine  right  of  kings,  the  duty  of 
passive  obedience,  and  the  social  contract  theory  of  gov- 
ernment.2  Indeed,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  no  other 
product  of  the  human  mind,  not  even  the  Greek  philos- 
ophy, has  had  so  far-reaching,  nor,  in  its  immediate  orig- 
inal form,  so  permanent  an  influence  as  the  Roman  law. 

Another  specific  product  of  the  Roman  political  system 

frequent  use,  after  the  revival  of  the  Roman  law,  in  the  charters  of  eman- 
cipation which  are  so  numerous  at  the  close  of  the  middle  ages  as  a  state- 
ment of  the  reason  which  led  to  the  granting  of  the  charter.  Brought  again 
into  notice  in  this  way,  their  very  concise  statement  of  what  seemed  to  be 
a  great  truth,  and  one  especially  attractive  to  theorists  in  states  enjoying 
little  actual  hberty,  kept  them  from  being  forgotten,  and  they  passed  into 
the  writings  of  the  speculative  philosophers  of  the  seventeenth  and  eight- 
eenth centuries,  and  from  this  source  into  the  pohtical  documents  of  the 
close  of  the  eighteenth.  Especially  interesting  is  their  operation  sis  actual 
law,  in  at  least  one  case,  in  a  way  which  would  have  astonished  the  old  Ro- 
man jurists.  Inserted  in  the  constitution  of  Massachusetts,  they  gave  rise 
to  a  decision  of  her  supreme  court,  in  1780,  declaring  slavery  no  longer  legal 
in  that  State. 

'  Professor  George  P.  Fisher,  Discussions  in  History  and  Theology,  p-  48. 

*  See  Maine,  Ancient  Law,  pp.  329  Jf. 


WHAT    THE   MIDDLE   AGES    STARTED    WITH  37 

has  had  as  long  a  life  and  almost  as  wide  an  influence — 
the  imperial  government.  Formed  out  of  a  democratic 
republic  where  the  name  of  king  was  intensely  hated,  by 
the  necessities  which  arose  from  the  government  of  a  vast 
empire,  a  real  despotism  but  of  a  new  type,  under  new 
forms  and  a  new  name,  while  to  all  external  appearance 
the  old  republic  continued  as  before,  it  is  itself  one  of  the 
best  examples  of  the  institution-making  power  of  the 
Romans.^  Its_strong  centralization  delayed  for  genera- 
tions the  fall  of  Rome;  its  real  majesty  and  august  cere- 
monial profoundly  impressed  the  German  conquerors;  it 
became  one  of  the  most  powerful  causes  which  created 
the  papacy  and  furnished  it  a  model  in  almost  every  de- 
partment of  its  activity;  the  absolutisms  of  modern  Eu- 
rope were  largely  shaped  by  it;  and  the  modern  forms  of 
the  word  Cassar,  Kaiser  and  Czar,  in  governments  of  a 
similar  type,  however  different  in  detail,  are  a  proof  of 
the  power  and  permanence  of  its  influence  in  regions  where 
Rome  never  had  any  direct  control.  We  shall  need  to 
devote  some  space  at  a  later  point  to  the  powerful  preser- 
vative action  of  two  ideas  which  came  to  be  associated 
with  this  government — that  it  was  divinely  intended  to 
embrace  the  whole  world  and  to  last  as  long  as  the  world 
should  last. 

These  cases  may  suffice  for  illustration,  but  they  are 
by  no  means  the  only  specific  instances  of  the  abiding 
character  of  Rome's  political  work  which  could  be  men- 
tioned. Modern  political  vocabularies  testify  to  its  per- 
manence as  clearly  as  our  scientific  vocabularies  do  to  the 
influence  of  the  Arabs,  and  many  evidences  of  it  will 
occur  to  us  as  our  work  proceeds. 

We  have,  then,  these  contributions  to  civilization  from 
the  ancient  world.     From  Greece  an  unequalled  litera- 

'  As  the  exactly  opposite  process,  turning  a  monarchy  into  a  republic 
while  retaining  monarchical  forms,  is  of  the  institution-making  power  of 
the  Anglo-Saxons,. 


38  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

ture  and  art  and  the  foundations  of  philosophy  and  sci- 
ence. From  Rome  a  highly  perfected  system  of  law,  a 
model  of  most  effective  absolutism,  and  the  union  of  the 
ancient  world  in  an  organic  whole — the  foundation  of  all 
later  history. 

We  must  remember,  however,  in  closing  this  chapter, 
that  we  have  omitted  even  from  this  general  sketch  one 
large  side  of  civilization  to  which  we  can  give  no  ade- 
quate treatment  here  or  elsewhere.  It  is  what  may  be 
called  the  economic  and  mechanical  side.  There  passed 
over  to  the  middle  ages  from  the  ancients  large  gains  of 
this  sort.  Knowledge  of  the  mechanical  arts,  acquired 
skill  and  inventions;  methods  of  agriculture  and  naviga- 
tion; organized  trade  and  commerce  not  all  of  which 
disappeared;  accumulations  of  capital;  cleared  and  im- 
proved land,  houses,  roads,  and  bridges,  many  of  which 
continued  in  use  across  the  whole  of  medieval  times;  ad- 
ministrative methods  both  in  general  and  local  govern- 
ment; in  a  word,  all  sorts  of  practical  knowledge  and 
training  and  many  mechanical  appliances.  The  eco- 
nomic influence  of  the  Roman  Empire  affected  in  many 
ways  indeed  the  larger  movements  of  history.  The  com- 
parative free  trade  which  the  empire  established,  the  con- 
stitution of  the  Roman  villa  or  farm,  the  beginning  of  the 
process  which  transformed  the  slave  into  the  serf,  the 
forced  dependence  of  the  small  landholder  upon  the  large 
one,  are  important  instances.  These  things  constitute 
together,  in  some  respects,  the  most  primary  and  funda- 
mental department  of  civilization,  and  must  not  be  for- 
gotten, though,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  instances 
which  we  shall  notice,  they  demand,  like  the  greater  part 
of  political  history,  special  and  specific  treatment. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  ADDITION   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

Into  this  Roman  Empire  there  came  the  Christian  re- 
ligion, adding  its  own  contribution  of  great  ideas  to  those 
of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  in  the  end  acting  as  the 
first  of  the  great  influences  transforming  the  ancient  into 
the  modern  world.  It  appeared  just  after  the  empire 
had  received  its  organization  as  a  monarchy;  it  grew 
very  slowly  by  count  of  numbers  during  the  next  suceed- 
ing  generations,  while  the  empire  was  still  strong  and  per- 
fecting its  organization;  as  the  Roman  power  decayed  it 
began  to  spread  with  greater  rapidity,  till,  by  the  middle 
of  the  fourth  century,  on  the  eve  of  the  German  con- 
quest, it  was  the  prevailing  religion — not  perhaps  in  ac- 
tual numbers,  but  certainly  in  influence  and  energy  and 
in  the  real  control  of  society. 

During  its  early  career,  at  least,  the  progress  of  this 
new  faith  was  rendered  slow  by  certain  facts  which  were 
characteristic  of  it.  Its  adherents  were  few.  They  were 
from  the  lowest  ranks  of  society,  workmen  and  slaves 
— more  largely  also  women  than  men— so  that  it  at- 
tracted very  little  attention  from  persons  of  position  and 
influence.  Its  missionaries  also  were  Jews,  a  turbulent 
race,  not  to  be  assimilated,  and  as  much  despised  and 
hated  by  the  pagan  Roman  as  by  the  medieval  Christian. 
Wherever  it  attracted  any  notice,  therefore,  it  seems  to 
have  been  regarded  as  some  rebel  faction  of  the  Jews, 
gone  mad  upon  some  obscure  point  of  the  national  su- 
perstition— an  outcast  sect  of  an  outcast  race. 

39 


40  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Again,  it  is  a  permanent  characteristic  of  Christianity 
that  many,  at  least,  of  its  external  features  in  any  partic- 
ular age — the  points  of  conduct  upon  which  it  insists  with 
the  greatest  emphasis — are  determined,  we  may  almost 
say  are  selected,  by  the  character  of  the  great  evils  which, 
for  the  time  being,  it  has  especially  to  fight.  In  the  first 
age  the  greatest  enemy  to  be  overcome  was  gaganism. 
Christianity  had  other  truths  of  importance  to  teach, 
and  other  evils  to  overcome,  but  the  one  deadly  foe 
whose  complete  possession  of  society  must  be  first  of  all 
destroyed  was  the  worship  of  many  gods.  This  complete 
contrast  between  the  new  religion  and  the  dominant 
heathenism  led  necessarily  to  a  strictness  in  the  teach- 
ing and  practice  of  the  monotheistic  doctrine  which  the 
pagan  society  found  it  hard  to  understand,  and  which 
placed  Christianity  at  a  disadvantage  in  competition 
with  the  numerous  other  oriental  religions  which  were 
at  this  time  spreading  over  the  Roman  Empire,  for  Chris- 
tianity would  seem  to  the  observant  Roman  nothing  more 
than  one  of  this  general  class. 

These  other  religions  said  to  the  Roman:.  Continue- to 
worship  your  own  gods,  worship  as  many  gods  as  you 
please,  only  take  this  one  in  addition;  they  are  good, 
but  we  bring  you  something  better  on  some  particular 
point,  some  more  perfect  statement  of  the  common  truth, 
accept  this  also.  Christianity  said:  No.  All  these  teach- 
ings are  false,  all  idol  worship  is  a  deadly  siff. — You  must 
abandon  all  these  beliefs  and  accept  this  alone  as  the  only 
true  and  exclusive  faith.  And  this  teaching  the  Christians 
carried  out  in  their  daily  living  even,  in  frequent  cases 
concerning  such  minutiae  as  food  to  be  eaten  and  oc- 
cupations to  be  pursued.  This  was  a  demand  entirely 
new  and  incomprehensible  to  the  ordinary  heathen  mind, 
trained  in  the  idea  of  an  unlimited  pantheon,  though  a 
tendency  towards  monotheism  may  be  found  in  the  more 
advanced  religious  thought  of  the  time.     It  is  not  strange 


THE   ADDITION    OF    CHRISTIANITY  41 

that  the  determination  of  the  Christian  to  die  rather  than 
to  perform  the  simplest  rite  of  pagan  worship  seemed  to 
the  Roman  the  most  obstinate  and  insane  stupidity.  In 
other  words,  the  native  attitude  of  the  ancient  mind  to- 
wards questions  of  rehgion  needed  to  be  completely  revolu- 
tionized before  the  new  faith  could  be  victorious^a  task 
of  immense  difficulty  and  not  completely  performed  in 
that  age,  as  we  shall  see  when  we  come  to  consider  the 
transformation  of  Christian  ideas  which  resulted  from  the 
struggle. 

And  yet,  notwithstanding  these  obstacles,  and  the  ap- 
parently slight  chance  of  success  which  it  had,  Christian- 
ity made  extremely  rapid  progress  in  relative  increase. 
"Starting  from  an  insignificant  province,  from  a  despised 
race,  proclaimed  by  a  mere  handful  of  ignorant  workmen, 
demanding  self-control  and  renunciation  before  unheard 
of,  certain  to  arouse  in  time  powerful  enemies  in  the  highly 
cultivated  and  critical  society  which  it  attacked,  the  odds 
against  it  were  tremendous.  But  within  a  single  genera- 
tion it  had  been  successfully  taught  in  all  the  central 
provinces  of  the  Roman  Empire  and  far  beyond  its 
boundaries.  In  the  second  century  its  progress  among  all 
classes  was  very  rapid.  In  less  than  three  hundred  years 
from  the  crucifixion  it  had  become  the  recognized  religion 
of  the  imperial  court  and  had  been  placed  on  a  footing 
of  legal  equality  with  paganism  throughout  the  empire, 
and  before  that  century  closed  it  was  the  only  legal  re- 
ligion. Its  progress  seems  miraculous,  and  Freeman  has 
not  overstated  the  case  in  the  following  sentence:  "The 
miracle  of  miracles,  greater  than  dried-up  seas  and  cloven 
rocks,  greater  than  the  dead  rising  again  to  life,  was 
when  the  Augustus  on  his  throne.  Pontiff  of  the  gods  of 
Rome,  himself  a  god  to  the  subjects  of  Rome,  bent  him- 
self to  become  the  worshipper  of  a  crucified  provincial  of 
his  empire."^  It  must  have  possessed  certain  great  com- 
I  Freeman,  Periods  of  European  History,  p.  67. 


42  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

pensating  advantages  to  give  it  so  speedy  a  victory  in 
the  face  of  such  difficulties. 

By  far  the  most  important  of  these  advantages  was  the 
definiteness  and  confidence  of  its  teaching  on  the  ques- 
tions of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  and  the  expiation  of 
sin.  Whatever  cause  may  be  assigned  for  it,  the  fact  is 
clear  that  the  society  of  the  empire  was  intensely  interested 
in  these  two  questions.  At  the  end  of  the  republic,  the 
faith  of  the  Romans  in  their  national  mythology  may  have 
grown  weak,  but  their  interest  in  the  deeper  problems  of 
religion  had  only  quickened.  In  the  early  days  of  the 
empire  the  first  mentioned  was  the  more  absorbing  ques- 
tion— Does  the  soul  live  after  death?  Can  we  know  any- 
thing of  the  future  life?  and  various  forms  of  religion, 
chiefly  from  the  East,  like  the  worship  of  Isis,  gained 
numerous  adherents  for  a  time,  because  they  seemed  to 
offer  some  more  complete  revelation  upon  this  point.  As 
the  dark  days  came  on  and  evils  crowded  upon  the  em- 
pire, the  other  question  demanded  more  attention,  and 
the  practice  of  various  expiatory  rites — of  oriental  origin 
again  and  horribly  bloody  and  revolting  in  character — 
became  frequent  in  the  West.  Of  these  the  most  promi- 
nent was  Mithraism,  which  at  one  time  seemed  to  be  a 
serious  rival  to  Christianity.^  But  for  the  earnest  man 
who  is  seeking  after  help  in  some  spiritual  need  which 
is  clearly  realized,  the  practice  of  rites  and  ceremonies  is 
never  permanently  satisfactory,  and  Christianity  pos- 
sessed an  enormous  advantage  over  its  rivals  in  the  char- 
acter of  its  teaching  upon  these  points,  and  in  the  con- 
fidence of  its  faith.  The  Christian  teacher  did  not  say: 
I  believe.  He  said:  I  know.  On  the  question  of  immor- 
tality he  appealed  to  an  actual  case  of  resurrection,  sup- 
ported, as  he  said,  by  the  testimony  of  many  witnesses 

^  See  a  brief  description  of  these  rites  in  Hodgkin,  Italy  aiul  Her  Invaders, 
vol.  I,  p.  562,  note  (second  edition),  and  especially  Franz  Cumont,  Tlie  Mys- 
teries of  Mithra,  translation  of  T.  J.  McCormack,  1903. 


THE   ADDITION   OF   CHRISTIANITY  43 

■ — the  founder  of  his  faith,  not  raised  from  the  dead  by 
some  miracle-worker  calling  him  forth  by  incantations, 
but  rising,  himself,  by  the  power  of  an  inner  and  higher 
life  which  was  beyond  the  reach  of  death,  the  first-fruits 
of  them  that  slept.  On  the  question  of  the  forgiveness 
of  sin  he  appealed  to  the  cases  of  innumerable  individuals 
— even  of  communities  and  tribes — transformed  by  the 
power  of  his  gospel  from  lives  of  sin  and  degradation  to 
orderly  and  righteous  living.^ 

The  one  thing  which  was  the  essential  peculiarity  of 
this  teaching,  as  compared  with  other  religions,  was,  no 
doubt,  also  the  thing  which  was  the  source  of  the  Chris- 
tian's extreme  confidence  and  of  his  permanent  faith. 
This  was  the  belief  of  the  Christian  that  an  intimate  per- 
sonal tie  had  been  established  between  himself  and  God 
by  the  Sa\dour.  The  tender  fatherhood  of  God,  willing 
to  forgive  the  sinful  man,  and  to  create  in  him  anew  the 
forces  of  a  pure  life,  was,  to  the  disciple,  the  central 
truth  of  the  gospel.  The  love  of  God  replaced  the  fear 
of  God  as  a  controlling  principle  and  became  a  far  greater 
force  than  that  had  ever  been.  The  Christian  apostle 
did  not  demand  belief  in  any  system  of  intellectual  truth. 
The  primitive  Christianity  had  apparently  no  required 
theology.^  He  did  not  demand  that  certain  rites  and 
ceremonies  should  be  performed.  The  rites  of  the  primi- 
tive Christianity  were  of  the  simplest  sort  and  not  re- 
garded as  causes.  What  he  demanded  was  personal  love 
for  a  personal  Saviour.  His  was  the  proclamation — -in  the 
one  way  to  make  it  a  practical  force  in  daily  civilization, 
not  a  mere  theory  in  the  text-books  of  scholars — of  the 
fundamental  truth  which  all  philosophy  had  sought,  the 
unity  of  God  and  man,  the  harmony  of  the  finite  and 

*  Almost  all  the  early  Christian  literature  can  now  be  read  in  English. 

-  "It  is  the  glory  of  the  earliest  church  that  it  had  for  its  people  no  de- 
manded creed  of  abstract  doctrine  whatsoever." — (Phillips  Brooks,  in  the 
Princelon  Review,  March,  iSyg,  p.  306.)  Compare  Fisher,  Beginnings  of 
Christianity,  p.  566. 


44  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  infinite.  And  it  did  become  a  great  force,  and  re- 
mained so  in  proportion  as  it  was  not  obscured  by  later 
misconceptions.  There  can  be  no  question  but  that  this 
personal  faith  in  a  personal  Saviour,  this  belief  in  the  love 
of  God  and  the  reality  of  heaven  brought  to  thousands 
of  the  poor  and  ignorant,  and  in  as  high  a  degree,  the 
comfort  and  confidence  and  fearlessness  of  fate,  the  calm- 
ness and  consolations  which  philosophy  brought  to  the 
highly  cultured  few.^ 

This  peculiar  personal  character  of  its  faith^  was  un- 
doubtedly, as  was  just  remarked,  the  source  of  that  over- 
bearing confidence  of  beUef  in  its  answer  to  the  two  great 
religious  demands  of  the  age  which  gave  Christianity  a 
decided  advantage  over  every  other  religion.  The  com- 
pleteness with  which  it  satisfied  the  deepest  religious  needs 
of  the  time,  the  fulness  of  consolation  which  it  brought 
to  the  wretched  and  sorrowing,  these  were  the  most  efi'ec- 
tive  causes  of  its  rapid  spread  and  of  the  permanence  of 
its  hold  upon  its  followers. 

While  these  are  the  most  important,  some  few  of  the 
subsidiary  causes  of  its  rapid  advance  deserve  mention. 
The  study  of  the  Greek  philosophy,  and  especially  that 
of  Plato,  led  some  to  Christianity  after  it  began  to  at- 
tract the  attention  of  the  educated  classes.  But  here, 
again,  it  was  the  greater  definiteness  and  confidence  of 
its  answer  to  the  questions  which  the  Greek  philosophy 
raised  which  formed  the  decisive  reason  for  its  accep- 
tance. The  persecutions  'had  their  usual  effect.  They 
attracted  the  attention  of  many  to  the  new  faith  who 
would  otherwise  have  passed  it  by  unnoticed,  and  they 
forced  men  to  ask  if  there  must  not  be  something  more 
in  it  than  appeared  on  the  surface  to  account  for  the 
calmness  and  joy  of  the  Christian  in  the  face  of  death. 

'  It  should  be  understood  here  and  elsewhere  that  these  matters  are 
stated  not  as  religious  truths  but  as  facts  which  have  their  part  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  time  and  which  the  historian  is  bound  not  to  overlook. 


THE    ADDITION    OF    CHRISTIANITY  45 

The  earnestness  and  enthusiasm  of  all  early  converts 
to  a  new  form  of  faith  were  especiajly  characteristic  of 
the  Christians  and  seemed  especially  contagious.  The 
effect  of  Christianity  on  the  lives  of  those  who  embraced 
it  was  constantly  appealed  to  by  the  early  Christians  as 
evidence  of  the  character  of  their  religion,  and  it  must 
have  been  an  extremely  forcible  argument.  It  would  be 
very  interesting,  if  space  allowed  us  to  do  so,  to  examine 
in  detail  the  ethical  influence  of  early  Christianity  so 
far  as  the  evidence  permits.  There  can  be  no  question 
but  that,  so  long  as  it  remained  a  pure  and  simple  re- 
ligion, its  influence  worked  a  moral  revolution  in  those 
who  came  under  it.  It  is  only  necessary  to  recall  the 
ethical  exhortations  in  the  New  Testament,  or  the  lists 
of  sins,  the  doers  of  which  cannot  enter  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  and  to  remember  such  facts  as  the  regulations 
against  taking  part  in,  or  even  attending,  the  gladia- 
torial games — the  most  intensely  exciting  amusement  of 
the  ancient  world,  or  the  proscribing  of  certain  occupa- 
tions— metal  workers,  actors,  sometimes  even  soldiers  or 
officers  of  the  state — to  realize  how  complete  a  control 
over  conduct  it  attempted  and  how  squarely  it  attacked 
the  characteristic  sins  of  the  age,  and  although  Chris- 
tianity did  not  succeed  in  destroying  sin  in  the  world, 
nor  even  within  its  own  membership,  the  cases  seem  to 
have  been  numerous  in  which  the  process  went  far  enough 
to  furnish  a  strong  argument  in  making  other  converts. 

Like  all  great  movements  of  the  kind,  the  spread  of 
Christianity  is  not  to  be  explained  by  the  action  of  a 
single  cause,  and  others,  perhaps  as  important  as  these, 
contributed  to  the  rapidity  of  its  advance.  However  the 
fact  may  be  accounted  for,  the  number  of  its  adherents 
soon  became  great  enough  to  attract  to  itself  the  atten- 
tion of  the  state.  Whatever  may  be  true  of  the  first 
century,  whether  or  not  the  Roman  government  was  con- 
scious in  that  age  of  any  distinction  between  Christians 


46  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

and  Jews,  or  whether  it  had  any  clear  idea  of  what  it 
was  doing  in  the  persecutions  under  such  tyrants  as  Nero 
and  Domitian,  it  is  certain  that,  early  in  the  second 
century,  it  came  to  have  an  understanding  of  Christian 
ity  and  its  attitude  towards  the  state  religion — an  atti 
tude  which  the  conscientious  Roman  ruler  could  hardly 
pass  unnoticed. 

The  action  of  the  Roman  government  in  respect  to 
many  of  the  new  religions  which  were  making  their  way 
towards  the  West  was  inconsistent.  It  was  an  alterna- 
tion of  careless  indifference,  or  even  apparent  favor,  with 
spasmodic  attempts  at  repression  which  really  accom- 
plished nothing.  But  there  was  in  Christianity  an  ele- 
ment of  hostility  towards  the  state  which  none  of  the 
other  new  religions  contained.  While  they  might  lead 
to  a  neglect  of  the  state  religion  by  the  greater  interest 
excited  in  the  new  faith,  Christianity  insisted  upon  the 
entire  abandonment  of  the  national  worship,  not  as  an 
inferior  religion  but  as  an  actual  and  particularly  hei- 
nous sin.  According  to  all  the  ideas  of  the  Romans,  such 
a  demand  could  be  nothing  but  rebellion  and  treason. 
The  safety  of  the  state  depended  upon  the  fidelity  of  the 
citizens  to  the  national  worship.  If  the  gods  were  duly 
honored  and  the  sacrifices  carefully  performed,  the  state 
flourished;  if  they  were  neglected  or  carelessly  wor- 
shipped, misfortunes  followed.  Undoubtedly  this  belief 
on  its  practical,  if  not  on  its  theoretical  side  had  greatly 
weakened  during  the  prosperous  times  of  Rome's  his- 
tory. But  it  had  not  been  abandoned,  and  when  pubhc 
misfortunes  became  frequent  and  the  power  of  the  state 
seemed  declining,  it  was  natural  that  the  earnest  re- 
former should  believe  the  neglect  of  the  gods  to  be  the 
source  of  the  evil  and  seek  a  restoration  of  prosperity  by 
means  of  a  restoration  of  the  national  rehgion;  or,  if  not 
himself  fully  confident  of  this,  it  was  natural  that  he 
should  believe  that  the  "reflex  influence"  of  an  earnest 
national  worship  would  check  the  causes  of  decline. 


THE   ADDITION   OF   CHRISTIANITY  47 

It  follows  from  this  that  the  time  of  systematic  and 
deliberate  persecution  comes  when  the  real  statesmen  of 
the  empire  have  become  conscious  of  the  deadly  nature 
of  her  disease.  It  seems  evident  that  we  must  say  that, 
daring  the  first  century,  the  government  had  no  distinct 
consciousness  of  the  existence  of  Christianity.  The  sec- 
ond century  is  a  time  of  local  and  temporary  enforce- 
ment of  the  laws  against  the  Christians.  With  the  third 
century  we  reach  an  age  of  fearfully  rapid  decline  and 
of  most  earnest  attempts,  at  intervals,  by  clear-sighted 
emperors,  to  turn  back  the  tide,  and  this  is  the  age  of 
planned  and  thoroughgoing  imperial  persecution.  There 
was  really  no  alternative  for  men  like  Decius  and  Valerian 
and  Diocletian.  Christianity  was  a  vast,  organized  de- 
fiance of  the  law.  It  vehemently  denounced  the  national 
religion  as  a  deadly  sin.  It  earnestly  denied  any  para- 
mount duty  of  loyalty  to  the  state,  and  appealed  to  a 
higher  loyalty  to  another  fatherland.  No  restoration  of 
earlier  Roman  conditions,  such  as  the  reformers  hoped 
for,  could  be  possible  unless  it  was  overcome.^ 

But  it  was  too  late.  Christianity  was  now  too  strong. 
These  systematic  persecutions  of  the  third  century  failed, 
and  the  last,  Diocletian's,  ended  in  a  virtual  confession 
of  defeat.     Not  that   the   Christians  were  now  in   the 

'  The  whole  subject  of  the  teaching  of  early  Christianity  upon  the  rela- 
tion of  the  individual  to  the  state,  and  its  effect  in  the  Roman  Empire,  is 
a  very  interesting  one.  It  has  been  repeatedly  asserted  that  the  extreme 
vividness  with  which  it  conceived  of  the  higher  interest  of  the  life  to  come 
in  comparison  with  this  life,  and  of  citizenship  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ 
as  wider  and  more  obligatory  than  any  earthly  citizenship,  was  one  of  the 
serious  causes  of  the  dissolution  of  the  Roman  state.  The  proof  of  this 
assertion  seems  to  me  entirely  inadequate.  The  most  that  can  be  main- 
tained with  certainty  is  that  the  attitude  of  the  Christians  was  a  very 
serious  obstacle  to  the  efforts  at  restoration  and  revival  in  the  middle  empire, 
so  serious  an  obstacle,  indeed,  that  it  goes  far,  when  looked  at  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  Roman  statesman,  to  justify  the  attempts  of  the  reform- 
ing emperors  to  put  down  Christianity  by  force  even,  since  there  was  no 
possible  means  of  bringing  its  adherents  back  to  their  duty  to  the  state. 
That  the  teaching  of  Christianity  was  a  positive  cause  of  dissolution  I  do 
not  think  can  be  shown. 


48  MEDIEVAL    CIVILIZATION 

majority.  They  were  far  from  it,  and  did  not  become 
so  until  long  afterwards.  No  exact  figures  are  possible, 
but  it  seems  certain  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth 
century  they  were  not  more  than  one-tenth  of  the  total 
population  in  the  eastern  half  of  the  empire,  nor  more 
than  one-fifteenth  in  the  western.  But  they  had  an  im- 
portance altogether  disproportionate  to  their  numbers. 
A  gloomy  and  hopeless  fear  of  the  future  was  settling 
over  the  pagan  world.  It  seemed  to  be  coming  to  real- 
ize that  its  best  days  were  past  and  that  its  highest 
creations  were  falling  into  decay,  and  to  be  losing  its 
earlier  self-confident  spirit  and  energy.  But  the  Chris- 
tians had  been  inspired  with  a  new  hope  for  the  future 
which  was  wholly  independent  of  the  fate  of  the  empire. 
The  convulsions  and  revolutions  of  the  present  could  only 
be  prefatory  to  a  better  era,  and  the  Christian  commu- 
nity was  full  of  enthusiasm  and  energy  and  the  \dgor  of 
a  new  life,  in  marked  contrast  to  the  pagan.  Again,  the 
Christian  was  a  distinctly  city  population;  that  is,  their 
numbers,  however  small  they  may  have  been  as  com- 
pared with  the  whole,  were  massed  in  the  especial  points 
of  influence,  occupied  the  strategic  positions  throughout 
the  empire.  Still  further,  their  organization,  though  less 
close  than  it  was  soon  to  be,  gave  them  means  of  speedy 
communication  and  common  action.  Undoubtedly,  their 
power  was  greater  than  their  relative  numbers  and 
probably  greater  than  they  themselves  knew.  But  it 
was  not  long  before  the  ^man  came  who  suspected  the 
fact,  and,  in  turning  it  to  his  personal  advantage,  secured 
the  triumph  of  Christianity  over  paganism. 

That  Constantine  declared  himself  a  supporter  of 
Christianity  from  a  conviction  of  its  truth  or  from  rehg- 
ious  motives  cannot  be  maintained.  Indeed,  there  is  no 
evidence  to  show  that  he  ever  became  in  heart  a  real 
Christian.  His  motive  is  not  hard  to  guess.  As  he 
started   out  from   his   small   frontier  province   with  his 


THE   ADDITION    OF   CHRISTIANITY  49 

little  army  to  conquer  the  empire,  the  odds  against  him 
were  tremendous.  But  there  have  not  been  many  men 
in  history  of  clearer  political  insight  than  his.  It  is  not 
rash  to  suppftSe  thafheTeasbiied  with  himself  that  if  he 
proclaimed  himself  the  protector  of  this  hitherto  illegal 
and  persecuted  sect  they  would  rally  to  his  support  with  all 
their  enthusiasm,  and  that  he  would  secure  the  aid  of  the 
most  vigorous  faction  in  the  state.  The  great  weakness 
of  heathenism,  in  contrast  with  Christianity,  must  have 
been  apparent  to  so  keen  an  observer.  Without  union 
among  its  scattered  forces,  without  leadership,  believing 
in  itself  with  no  devoted  confidence,  without  faith  in  the 
future,  with  no  mission  in  the  present  to  awaken  energy 
and  life,  it  was  not  the  party  which  an  ambitious  and 
clear-headed  young  man  would  choose  to  lead  to  victory. 
The  motive  which  induced  him  to  support  Christianity 
was  purely  political,  and  the  result  certainly  proved  his 
judgment  correct. 

But  in  another  sense  the  act  of   Constantine  has  a 
further  significance  and  is  a  part  of  a  wider  movement.    . 

The  transformation  of  the  Roman  Empire  from  the 
ancient  to  the  medieval  was  made  in  the  half  century 
which  followed  the  accession  of  Diocletian.  The  changes 
introduced  by  him  in  forms  and  constitution,  as  modi- 
fied and  carried  farther  by  Constantine,  marked  an  entire 
revolution,  a  complete  change  of  front.  The  empire  cut 
itself  loose  from  its  past.  It  no  longer  pretended  to  be 
what  it  had  been  at  first.  It  frankly  recognized  the  situ- 
ation as  it  was  and  no  longer  attempted  to  restore  the 
old.  It  had  faced  the  future.  This  change  logically  car- 
ried with  it  the  recognition  of  Christianity.  It  is  by  no  • 
means  certain  that  Diocletian  was  not  vaguely  conscious 
of  this.  Constantine  realized  it  clearly  enough  for  action, 
though  he  might  not  have  been  able  to  put  it  in  this  form 
of  statement. 

For  Christianity,  as  for  the  empire,  this  was  an  age  cf 


50  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

transition,  an  age  of  transformation  in  character  and  in 
constitution,  the  results  of  which  will  occupy  us  elsewhere. 

It  remains  for  us  to  point  out,  so  far  as  it  is  possible, 
the  contributions  of  Christianity  to  our  civilization,  as 
one  of  the  four  great  sources  from  which  that  civilization 
was  originally  derived.  What  are  the  new  elements  which 
were  brought  into  human  life  and  progress  by  the  Chris- 
tian religion? 

In  making  an  attempt  to  do  this  it  is  necessary  at  the 
outset  to  notice  briefly,  by  way  of  caution,  two  or  three 
elementary  facts  which  will  be  stated  more  fully  in  a 
later  chapter.  In  the  first  place,  we  are  to  examine  the 
effect  of  Christianity  as  an  historical  force,  not  as  a  di- 
vine religion.  Whether  its  claim  to  an  especial  divine 
character  be  true  or  false  makes  no  difference  in  this^  in- 
quiry. Here  we  are  to  seek  the  influences  which  certainly 
follow  from  it  as  historical  facts,  whichever  hypothesis 
may  be  adopted. 

In  the  second  place,  we  are  concerned  here  neither 
with  the  results  which  were  accomplished  by  the  Chris- 
tian theology,  nor  with  those  which  followed  from  the 
church  as  a  government  or  an  ecclesiastical  institution. 
In  both  these  directions  the  Christian  religion  furnished 
the  foundation  for  great  historical  constructions  which 
had  extremely  important  results.  But  in  neither  case  is 
Christianity  as  a  religion  the  really  creative  power,  and 
the  results  which  followed  from  the  dogmatic  system,  or 
from  the  church,  can  be  credited  to  the  religion  only  in 
so  far  as  it  furnished  an  occasion  for  the  action  of  the 
forces  which  really  called  them  into  existence.  It  is  with 
the  religious  that  we  are  concerned  at  this  point,  and  not 
with  the  theological  or  the  ecclesiastical,  though  these 
affect  our  history  elsewhere. 

Again,  it  should  be  noticed  that  influences  of  a  relig- 
ious nature,  like  those  of  pure  ideas  of  any  sort,  are  diffi- 


THE   ADDITION   OF   CHRISTIANITY  5 1 

cult  to  trace  with  absolute  exactness.  Their  action  is 
much  less  likely  to  be  made  a  matter  of  record  than  is 
that  of  other  causes  which  may  have  contributed  to  the 
common  result.  There  can  be  no  question,  for  example, 
but  that  the  teachings  of  the  gospel  were  decisive  in- 
fluences, in  thousands  of  individual  cases  in  the  United 
States,  in  creating  a  public  opinion  against  slavery  be- 
fore the  Civil  War;  but  it  would  be  far  more  difiicult  to 
write  the  history  of  their  action  than  to  write  the  history 
of  the  political  influences  which  combined  with  them.  We 
are  often  confined  to  inference  in  such  cases  in  the  ab- 
sence of  positive  proof,  but  the  inference  may  be  so  ob- 
vious as  to  be  equivalent  to  proof. 

Taking  up,  then,  the  work  of  Christianity  for  civiliza- 
tion, we  must  first  consider  its  influence  upon  the  world's 
religious  ideas  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  and  it 
will  be  in  this  direction  that  its  most  important  influ- 
ence will  be  found.  Religion  forms  one  great  side  of  civ- 
ilization, and  whatever  raises  the  world's  religious  con- 
ceptions to  a  higher  level  must  be,  it  need  hardly  be  said, 
among  the  great  civilizing  forces  of  history.^ 

As  a  contribution  to  the  religious  side  of  civilization 
the  general  work  of  Christianity  is  not  difiicult  to  state. 
The  work  of  this  new  religion,  which  stands  first  in  logical 
order,  was  to  free  the  monotheistic  idea  which  the  Jews 
had  attained  from  the  narrow  tribal  conditions  which  had 
made  the  general  acceptance  of  it  impossible  and  to  make 
it  the  ruling  idea  of  God  in  the  Christian  world,  from 
which  it  passed  later  to  the  Mohammedan,  God  was  to 
be  henceforth  one  God. 

It  introduced  with  this  idea  of  the  one  only  true  God 
a  wholly  different  conception  of  his  character  and  of  his 

^  In  considering  in  the  first  part  of  this  chapter  those  ideas  of  the  early 
Christianity  which  aided  in  its  rapid  extension  throughout  the  ancient 
world,  some  of  its  teachings  and  results  which  were  new  have  already  been 
indicated.    They  will  be  repeated  in  this  connection  for  completeness'  sake. 


52  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

relation  to  man  from  any  that  had  prevailed  before,  em- 
phasizing the  fatherhood  of  God  and  his  love  for  man. 
This' idea  of  the  fatherhood  of  God,  typified  and  pro- 
claimed in  an  extremely  effective  form  in  the  sonship  of 
Christ,  man's  elder  brother,  brought  man  near  to  God 
and  gave  him  a  new  point  of  view  for  all  the  future. 
Love  became  the  great  religious  force  of  the  new  age. 
In  the  practical  working  of  Christianity  this  idea  did  not 
remain  a  mere  idea.  It  was  transformed  into  a  positive 
force  in  history  through  the  keen  conception  which  the 
individual  Christian  had  of  the  immediate  personal  re- 
lationship between  himself  and  God,  by  virtue  of  which 
the  power  of  the  Almighty  would  come  to  his  aid  in  his 
endeavor  to  make  himself  like  God.  In  other  words, 
Christianity  not  merely  taught  that  this  relationship  was 
an  ideal  possibility,  but  it  made  men  believe  it  as  a  fact, 
so  that  they  actually  lived  with  a  sense  of  the  divine 
power  in  them. 

This  was  in  reality,  to  repeat  what  was  said  in  another 
connection,  the  proclamation  of  the  unity  of  God  and 
man,  of  the  finite  and  the  infinite,  not  as  a  philosophical 
idea  merely,  or  speculative  theory,  but  as  something  ac- 
tually to  be  realized  by  common  men.  The  "way  of 
return"  in  which  the  world  of  the  time  was  so  deeply  in- 
terested was  opened  to  all.  A  sense  of  reconciliation  and 
harmony  with  God  might  become,  Christianity  said,  a 
conscious  fact  of  daily  life  for  every  individual.  The 
convert  was  required  to  bring  himself  into  a  psycholog- 
ical condition  of  submission  to  the  will  of  God  of  which 
the  inevitable  result  was  a  sense  of  actual  reconciliation. 

Christianity  also  taught,  as  a  necessary  result  of  the 
Christian  conception  of  the  relation  between  God  and 
man,  that  religion  has  a  direct  practical  mission  as  an 
ethical  teacher  and  help.  This  was  a  new  and  most  im- 
portant step  in  advance.  The  ancient  national  religions 
had  made  no  ethical  demand  of  the  worshipper.     The 


THE   ADDITION    OF   CHRISTIANITY  53 

character  attributed  to  the  gods  could  not  be  helpful  to 
any  man.  The  pagan  priest  had  never  looked  upon  him- 
self as  a  teacher  of  morals,  or  conceived  of  any  reforma- 
tory mission  for  his  religion.  The  Greek  or  Roman  in 
need  of  ethical  aid  and  comfort  sought  the  philosopher 
and  not  the  priest.  This  whole  condition  of  things  Chris- 
tianity revolutionized.  The  pure  ideal  of  character  which 
it  held  aloft  in  its  conception  of  God,  its  clear  assertion 
of  the  necessity  and  the  possibility  of  such  a  character 
for  every  man  which  it  made  in  the  gospel  narrative, 
created  an  intimate  bond  between  religion  and  ethics  un- 
known before.^  The  religious  life  which  Christianity 
aimed  to  create  in  the  individual  must  of  necessity  express 
itself  in  right  conduct.  This  was  its  true  fruit,  its  ex- 
ternal test,  and  to  perfect  this  the  energy  of  the  new 
religion  was  especially  directed. 

It  is  no  doubt  true  that  these  religious  conceptions  did 
not  immediately  and  completely  gain  the  victory  over 
the  older  and  cruder.  The  struggle  between  the  old  and 
the  new  was  often  obstinate  and  long  continued,  and  the 
higher  conception  long  obscured   by  persistence  of  the 

^  The  Old  Testament  in  this,  as  in  some  other  of  the  points  mentioned, 
foreshadows  the  clearer  teaching  of  the  New.  St.  Augustine  perceived 
this  difference  between  Christianity  and  the  Roman  religion,  and  in  the 
City  of  God  challenged  the  pagans  to  produce  instances  of  moral  teaching 
in  their  religion.  See  especially  bk.  II,  chap.  6.  The  fact  that  the  Greek 
and  Roman  religions,  which  are  the  pagan  religions  of  the  ancient  world  in 
the  direct  line  of  our  civilization,  remained  to  the  end  strongly  political  or 
aesthetic  in  character,  probably  prevented  them  from  reaching  the  idea  of 
a  connection  between  the  national  religion  and  private  morals,  and  left  the 
recognition  of  this  truth  to  the  poets  and  philosophers,  who  certainly  came 
near  to  it.  See,  for  example,  Cicero,  De  Natura  Deoriim,  I,  i,  3  and  4. 
The  case  of  Socrates  is  very  much  to  the  point.  He  saw  as  clearly,  prob- 
ably, as  ever  any  pagan,  the  connection  between  man's  character  and  God, 
and,  in  what  is  a  very  remarkable  way,  also,  with  that  conscious  submission 
of  the  will  to  God  which  is  a  necessary  condition  of  spiritual  knowledge. 
But  Socrates  was  put  to  death  because  his  teaching  was  thought  to  be 
dangerous  to  the  state.  In  some  of  the  other  pagan  religions,  like  the  Egyp- 
tian, this  connection  was  more  clearly  seen,  and,  though  not  contributing 
directly  to  our  civilization,  such  cases  are,  in  themselves,  instructive. 


54  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

lower.  But  in  so  far  as  these  ideas  are  now  the  posses- 
sion of  men,  it  must  be  reckoned  to  the  credit  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  whoever,  even  if  he  deny  to  Christianity  a 
pecuharly  divine  character  or  any  finahty  as  a  religion, 
may  yet  hope  that  a  still  more  perfect  understanding  and 
reahzation  of  religious  truth  will  be  gained  in  the  future, 
must  recognize  in  Christianity  the  foundations  on  which 
it  will  be  built. 

So  much,  at  least,  may  be  said  with  confidence  upon 
the  contribution  which  Christianity  made  to  the  strictly 
religious  side  of  our  civilization.  If  what  has  just  been 
asserted  of  the  connection  which  the  Christian  teaching 
established  between  religion  and  ethics  be  true,  it  follows 
that  a  further  influence  of  this  religion  is  to  be  traced  in 
the  direction  of  practical  ethics. 

Here  is  to  be  noticed,  first  of  all,  the  lofty  ideal  of  a 
pure  and  sinless  life  which  Christianity  held  before  all 
men  in  its  story  of  the  life  of  Christ,  as  ?  model  which 
they  were  to  follow,  as  the  divinely  giver,  pattern  accord- 
ing to  which  they  were  to  shape  their  own  lives.  For 
Christianity  did  not  conceive  of  C2xrist's  life  as  the  life 
of  a  God  impossible  for  man,  but  as  a  divinely  aided 
human  life,  as  the  life  of  a  divine  being  who  had  been 
willing  to  become  really  a  man  and  to  put  himself  into 
those  conditions  and  limitations  in  the  midst  of  which 
man  must  live  in  order  that  he  might  be  taught  to  realize 
the  possibilities  of  his  own  life.  Or,  as  it  has  been  finely 
said,  this  life  of  Christ  "revealed  to  m.an  both  the  human 
side  of  God  and  the  divine  side  of  man."  The  Christian 
ideal  was  not  like  the  Stoic,  a  mere  ideal  which  had  never 
been  attained.  In  this  respect  Christianity  made  a  most 
decided  advance  upon  Stoicism  in  the  fact  that  it  pointed 
to  an  actual  hfe  which  had  realized  its  ideal,  as  well  as 
in  its  further  teaching  that  man  had  not  to  depend  solely 
^on  the  power  of  his  own  will  in  his  endeavor  to  attain  it. 

In  the  second  place,   Christianity  taught,  most  espe- 


THE   ADDITION    OF   CHRISTIANITY  55 

daily,  that  the  duty  of  conformity  to  this  ideal  and  of 
fideiitj^  ^o  tEeTirgher  moral  law  was  the  supreme  law  of 
conduct,,  whatever  the  power  might  be  which  demanded 
anything  to  the  contrary.  Christianity  clearly  asserted 
that  the  supreme  moral  law  was  distinct  from  the  law  of 
the  state  and  of  a  higher  validity.  It  was  not  exactly  a 
new  idea  that  there  existed  a  moral  law  separate  from 
the  law  of  the  state  to  which  man  ought  to  conform. 
Stoicism  at  least  perceived  the  fact.  But  that  this  law 
demanded  a  rightful  obedience  of  the  individual  when 
the  positive  requirement  of  the  state  conflicted  with  it 
was  an  advance,  though  certainly  the  pagan  ethics  could 
not  have  been  far  from  this  truth.  But  Christianity  did 
not  stop  with  this.  It  furnished  a  direct  practical  ex- 
hibition of  the  principle  in  a  constant  succession  of  the 
most  public  and  most  dramatic  examples  in  every  period 
of  persecution.  Within  its  own  membership,  also,  it  pro- 
ceeded to  the  positive  enforcement  of  this  supreme  moral 
law  in  the  system  of  church  penances,  very  early  devel- 
oped at  least  in  some  directions.  The  church  began  to 
hold  its  membership  directly  responsible  for  acts  of  which 
the  state  took  no  account-  Whatever  may  be  said  of 
the  system  of  penances  of  any  later  date,  there  can  be 
no  question  but  that  it  was  in  primitive  times  a  most 
effective  moral  teacher. 

In  the  third  place,  Christianity  taught  that  the  con- 
scious relationship  established  between  the  individual  and 
God  in  this  life  would  determine  his  destiny  in  the  life  to 
come,  and  that,  consequently,  a  right  moral  character, 
as  the  necessary  product  of  that  relationship,  as  the  in- 
dispensable fruit  and  test  of  the  harmony  of  the  human 
will  with  the  divine  wiU,  was  of  infmite  importance. 
Wrong  living  and  immoral  life  would  destroy  that  har- 
mony between  God  and  man  upon  which  an  eternity  of 
happiness  depended.  I  doubt  if  the  early  Christianity 
anywhere  formulated  this  teaching  in  exactly  this  shape, 


56  MEDTEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

but  if  the  statement  was  more  concrete  in  form  the  ethical 
meaning  and  influence  were  precisely  as  stated.* 

It  followed  necessarily  from  this  belief  that  many 
actions  of  which  the  ancient  law  had  taken  no  account, 
and  which  the  ancient  society  had  regarded  as  unimpor- 
tant, or  even  as  indifferent,  morally,  might  have  a  tremen- 
dous significance  as  elements  of  permanent  character, 
determining  the  attitude  of  the  individual  towards  God. 
It  is,  without  doubt,  chiefly  through  the  influence  of  this 
teaching,  through  the  introduction  of  the  idea  of  sin  as 
a  controlling  idea  in  ethics,  that  the  work  of  Christianity 
has  been  done  in  raising  the  general  moral  standard  and 
in  clarifying  specific  ethical  judgments,  as  in  the  change, 
to  specify  one  of  the  most  striking  cases,  which  has  been 
brought  about  in  the  character  of  the  judgment  passed 
upon  sexual  wrong-doing. 

Another  conclusion  from  this  teaching  in  regard  to 
character  was  that  the  determining  factor  in  all  ethical 
judgment  of  the  individual  must  be  the  inner  character 
and  not  the  external  act;  that  the  external  act  is  of  im- 
portance only  as  a  sign  of  what  the  inner  character  is. 
This  also  was  not  exactly  a  new  idea,  but  Christianity 
put  it  in  a  far  more  vivid  and  striking  form  than  ever 
before  when  it  recorded,  in  the  book  which  was  read  and 
reread  as  the  special  religious  guide  and  manual  of  all 
believers,  the  impressive  words  of  its  founder  in  which 
he  proclaimed,  in  regard  to  some  of  the  most  easily  be- 
setting sins  of  every  age,  that  the  passion  cherished  in 
the  heart  carries  with  it  the  guilt  of  the  act  itself. 

*  But  see  St.  Augustine,  City  of  God,  XXI,  25  (Dods's  translation,  vol.  II, 
p.  459):  "And  therefore  neither  ought  such  persons  as  lead  an  abandoned 
and  damnable  life  to  be  confident  of  salvation,  though  they  persevere  to  the 
end  in  the  communion  of  the  church  Catholic,  and  comfort  themselves  with 
the  words,  'He  that  sndureth  to  the  end  shall  be  saved.'  By  the  iniquity 
of  their  life  they  abandon  that  very  righteousness  of  life  which  Christ  is  to 
them,  whether  it  be  ...  by  doing  any  one  of  those  things  of  which  [the 
apostle]  says,  'They  who  do  such  things  shall  not  inherit  the  kingdom  ol 
God.'"  (Gal.  s  :  21).     Compare,  also,  the  opening  sentences  of  XIX,  4. 


THE   ADDITION   OF   CHRISTIANITY  57 

In  the  fourth  place,  among  the  contributions  of  Chris- 
tianity to  ethics — and  in  some  respects  this  was  its  most 
decisive  ethical  influence — Christianity  taught  a  doctrine 
of  hope  to  the  morally  depraved  and  debased  in  char- 
acter. It  taught  that  if  the  inner  character  was  not 
right,  it  might  be  transformed  by  the  grace  of  God,  if 
the  individual  would  accept  for  himself  the  culminating 
truth  of  its  religious  teaching,  forgiveness  of  sin  through 
faith  in  the  work  of  Christ,  that  it  might  be  transformed 
all  at  once,  by  a  single  supreme  choice,  a  conscious  sub- 
mission of  the  will  to  God,  so  that  the  man  would  come 
to  love  what  he  had  hated  and  hate  what  he  had  loved. 
And  it  also  taught  that  the  power  which  had  so  trans- 
formed the  life  would  continue  a  constant  divine  aid  in 
the  moral  endeavors  and  struggles  of  the  new  life.  The 
essential  thing  to  be  regarded  here,  entirely  independent 
of  any  religious  significance  which  it  may  have,  is  the 
historical  fact  that  Christianity  did  create  in  the  minds 
of  men  a  firm  and  confiding  belief  in  such  a  transforma- 
tion.^ 

It  begot  in  the  debased  and  despairing  outcast  a  firm 
assurance  that  he  had  escaped  wholly  from  his  past  life; 
that  its  associations  and  temptations  would  no  longer 
have  any  power  over  him,  but  that  he  was  as  free  to  begin 
a  new  life  as  if  he  had  been  born  again.  In  this  belief 
which  it  created,  Christianity  was  introducing  an  entirely 
new  factor  into  history.     The  greatest  problem  of  prac- 

'  Origen  quotes  Celsus  as  saying:  "And  yet,  indeed,  it  is  manifest  to  every 
one  that  no  one  by  chastisement,  much  less  by  merciful  treatment,  could 
effect  a  complete  change  in  those  who  are  sinners  both  by  nature  and  cus- 
tom, for  to  change  nature  is  an  exceedingly  difficult  thing."  After  calling 
attention  to  the  fact  that  philosophy  had  sometimes  worked  such  a  change 
of  character,  Origen  says:  "But  when  we  consider  that  those  discourses, 
which  Celsus  terms  'vulgar,'  are  filled  with  power,  as  if  they  were  spells, 
and  see  that  they  at  once  convert  multitudes  from  a  life  of  licentiousnees  to 
one  of  extreme  regxilarity,  and  from  a  life  of  wickedness  to  a  better,  .  .  . 
why  should  we  not  justly  admire  the  power  which  they  contain." — (Trans- 
lation of  Origen,  in  Ante-Nicene  Library,  vol.  II,  pp.  145-147. 


58  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

tical  ethics  has  always  been,  not  to  get  men  to  recognize 
the  truth  intellectually,  but  to  get  them  to  be  true  in 
conduct  to  their  ethical  convictions.  It  is  a  fact,  no  doubt, 
that  Stoicism  taught  a  very  high  system  of  moral  truth 
it  even  attempted,  as  a  sort  of  missionary  philosophy,  to 
persuade  men  to  live  according  to  the  laws  of  right;  but 
it  recognized  its  powerlessness  to  make  Stoics  of  the 
masses.  In  the  work  which  it  did  in  this  direction  is  to 
be  found  one  of  the  greatest  contributions  of  Christianity 
to  the  ethical  regeneration  of  the  world.  In  the  directly 
personal  character  of  its  central  truth,  Christ  the  Sav- 
iour of  each  individual  man,  in  the  firm  confidence  which 
it  created  that  the  power  of  God  had  transformed  the  life 
and  would  constantly  aid  in  the  struggle  to  keep  it  right, 
and  in  the  creative  power  of  love,  rising  in  the  heart  of 
man  to  meet  the  love  of  God,  Christianity  set  a  new  eth- 
ically regenerating  force  at  work  in  the  world.  And  it  is 
through  the  emphasizing  of  these  ideas  that  the  trans- 
forming power  of  Christianity  has  been  exercised.  In 
proportion  as  Christianity  has  kept  these  truths  at  the 
front  in  its  teaching  and  realized  them  in  its  prevailing 
life,  it  has  been  a  great  force  in  leading  men  to  a  higher 
ethical  level.  As  it  has  put  something  else  in  their  place 
as  the  main  thing  to  be  emphasized,  whether  external 
forms  or  doctrinal  beliefs,  it  has  failed  of  its  mission  and 
limited  its  own  power,  and  this  has  been  undoubtedly  the 
case  through  long  periods  of  time.  It  has  been  said  that 
the  church  never  sullied  the  purity  of  its  moral  teaching; 
but  it  must  be  confessed  that  there  are  ages  of  Christian 
history  when  the  theoretical  teaching  seems  to  be  almost 
the  only  thing  that  did  remain  pure,  and  when  this  had 
but  little  real  influence  upon  the  general  life  of  the  time. 
Genuine  Christianity,  in  such  an  age,  was  certainly  al- 
most lost  to  sight,  living  on  in  those  unpretending  lives 
which  attracted  no  attention  at  the  time,  but  of  which 
we  find  the  traces  even  in  the  darkest  days.     One  of 


THE   ADDITION   OF   CHRISTIANITY  59 

the  most  hopeful  signs  of  our  own  time  is  the  recovery 
of  influence  and  emphasis  in  the  active  Christianity  of 
to-day  which  these  ethical  ideas  have  made. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  overstate  the  importance  of  the 
new  power  thus  brought  into  the  moral  life  of  the  world. 
Science  forbids  us  to  believe  it  possible  to  add  any  new 
force  of  importance  tb  the  sum  total  of  physical  forces 
already  at  work  in  the  universe.  But  it  would  seem  as 
if  we  certainly  came  upon  the  fact  here  that  with  Chris- 
tianity there  was  added  to  the  sum  total  of  energies  in 
action  in  human  history  a  new  increment  of  ethical  force. 
Something  which  had  not  existed  in  the  world  before 
actually  made  it  easier  for  men  to  escape  from  the  bond- 
age of  evil  habits  and  to  realize  their  ideals  of  a  moral 
life.  It  may  be  difficult  to  follow  through  their  details 
the  results  which  have  been  thus  secured,  because  they 
are  reahzed  in  character  and  in  individuals  in  spheres  of 
life  where  record  is  unusual,  and  by  forces  that  are  silent 
and  unobserved  in  action.  But  publicans  and  sinners 
transformed  into  saints  of  Christian  history  are  by  no 
means  confined  to  the  gospel  days.^ 

There  remain  to  be  considered  certain  results  which 
Christianity  has  accomplished,  either  by  itself  or  in  com- 
bination with  influences  from  other  sources,  which  do  not 

'  Very  little  has  been  said  in  the  above  passage  of  the  influence  of  Chris- 
tianity upon  specific  ethical  doctrines,  and  for  these  reasons:  Upon  cer- 
tain points,  the  brotherhood  of  man,  for  example,  it  does  not  seem  to  me 
that  the  things  ordinarily  said  are  true.  Upon  some  others  I  am  very 
much  in  doubt  what  ought  to  be  said,  as  upon  the  duty  of  self-sacrifice  for 
others,  an  idea  of  conduct  which  appears  to  be  undergoing  transformation 
at  the  present  time.  But  in  the  main,  for  this  reason:  It  was  no  part  of  the 
peculiar  mission  of  Christianity  to  make  known  specific  ethical  principles.  It 
needs  no  revelation  to  make  them  known  to  men.  The  laws  of  conduct 
are  as  much  a  part  of  the  constituent  laws  of  man's  being  as  are  the  laws 
erf  logic,  and  the  growing  experience  of  man  teaches  him  what  these  laws 
are  in  the  one  case  as  it  does  in  the  other,  and  enlarges  and  clarifies  and  en- 
nobles his  ethical  ideas  precisely  as  it  does  his  mathematical.  The  pecu- 
liar mission  of  Christianity  is  in  the  religious  sphere,  and  its  relation  to 
ethics  is,  as  indicated  above,  in  the  vital  necessity  which  it  places  upon  the 


6o  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

naturally  fall  under  either  its  religious  or  its  directly 
ethical  work. 

Another  chapter  will  treat,  under  the  elements  of  civi- 
lization which  the  Germans  introduced,  of  the  origin  of 
the  modem  idea  of  the  worth  of  the  individual  man  as 
compared  with  the  classic  idea  of  the  greater  importance 
of  the  state.  One  source  out  of  which  the  modern  idea 
has  grown  is,  without  doubt,  the  supreme  value  placed 
upon  the  individual  man  in  the  Christian  teaching  of  the 
vastly  greater  importance  of  the  life  to  come  than  of  this 
life  or  any  of  its  interests,  of  the  infinite  destinies  before 
each  man,  all  depending  upon  his  individual  choice  and 
character.  The  attitude  of  the  early  church  in  this  mat- 
ter, towards  the  state  under  which  it  existed,  the  Roman 
Empire,  was  probably  more  extreme  than  its  attitude  to- 
wards any  later  government,  and  yet  there  have  been 
some  ages  in  which  the  contrast  between  the  higher  in- 
terests of  the  individual  and  those  of  the  state  has  been 
drawn  almost  as  sharply,  and  the  teaching  of  Christian- 
ity on  the  point  has  certainly  been  clear  and  unmistak- 
able. That  this  teaching  led  to  the  adoption  of  positive 
institutions  in  any  free  government  cannot  be  affirmed. 
Its  influence  is  to  be  found  rather  in  the  line  of  the  ideas 
by  which  we  defend  our  right  to  individual  liberty. 

Christianity  taught  also  the  equality  of  all  men  in  the 
sight  of  God.  It  taught  this  not  merely  as  an  abstract 
idea.  Stoicism  had  done  that.  But  in  the  early  Chris- 
tianity, at  least,  it  put  the  idea  into  practice  so  far  as  it 
was  possible  to  do  so.  The  master  was  held  to  treat  his 
slave  as  a  brother.     They  both  stood  on  the  same  foot- 

individiial,  of  living  better,  as  the  life  which  is  in  the  vine  makes  it,  of  neces- 
sity, bear  fruit. 

I  quote  the  following  passage  from  a  distinguished  living  divine  as  an 
example  of  the  careless  writing  which  is  often  done  on  the  specific  ethical 
influence  of  Christianity:  "It  is  not  without  significance  that  the  first  hos- 
pitals, the  first  schools,  the  first  free  states  have  been  Christian.  Monas- 
teries were  the  first  hospitals;   monks  were  the  first  teachers." 


THE   ADDITION   OF   CHRISTIANItY  6l 

ing  within  the  church,  and  its  ofl5ces  and  dignities  were 
open  to  both  alike.  If  the  early  story  that,  in  the  third 
century,  a  slave  became  bishop  of  Rome  is  doubtful,  the 
fact  that  such  a  story  came  to  be  believed  at  all  is  signifi- 
cant; and  certainly  in  feudal  days,  when  the  church  fell 
largely  under  the  feudal  influence,  instances  are  not  un- 
common of  men  from  the  lowest  classes  rising  to  positions 
in  the  church  of  the  highest  rank.  The  teaching  of  the 
church  always  kept  before  men  the  idea  of  the  equality 
in  moral  rights  and  in  final  destiny  of  all  men.  That  it 
was  the  chiefly  effective  force  in  establishing  practical 
equality,  so  far  as  it  has  been  established,  can  hardly  be 
asserted.^ 

Again,  Christianity  demanded  the  complete  separation 
of  church  and  state  and  asserted  that  each  mnst  be  rec- 
ognized as  having  its  own  distinct  and  independent  mis- 
sion to  perform.     In  the  ancient  world  the  two  had  been 

^  Under  this  point  something  may  be  said  upon  the  discussions,  which 
have  been  frequent  in  the  past,  on  the  specific  influence  of  Christianity  in 
the  abolition  of  slavery  and  in  the  advancement  of  woman  to  a  position 
of  equality  with  man.  It  is  clear  to  the  careful  student  of  history  that  both 
these  reforms  have  been  brought  about  by  a  combination  of  economic,  social, 
and  moral  causes,  of  which  the  Christian  teaching  forms  only  a  single  ele- 
ment. The  attempt  on  the  part  of  some  to  claim  for  Christianity  more  of 
a  share  in  these  results  than  can  be  fairly  claimed  grows  apparently  out  of  a 
misapprehension  of  the  nature  and  field  of  Christian  influence.  Ethical 
exhortation,  and  denunciation  of  vice,  and  the  example  of  noble  lives  are 
most  powerful  forces  in  the  moral  advancement  of  the  race,  and  it  is  ab- 
surd to  deny  them,  as  some  seem  desirous  to  do,  their  proper  share  in  the 
result.  But  where,  as  often  happens,  an  institution  which  involves  a  moral 
evil  is  bound  up  with  the  economic  and  social  conditions  of  a  given  stage 
of  civilization,  it  requires  more  than  a  moral  conviction,  more  even  thin 
a  generai  moral  conviction  that  it  is  wrong,  to  secure  its  overthrow,  however 
important  such  a  moral  conviction  may  be  as  one  of  the  necessary  causes 
of  its  destruction.  In  such  a  case,  also,  the  process  of  creating  a  general 
moral  condemnation  of  the  evil  is  always  a  long  and  slow  one,  and  not 
infrequently  the  professed  teachers  of  morals  are  to  be  found  upon  the 
wrong  side.  So  long  as  economic  and  social  conditions,  real  or  supposed, 
favor  the  continuance  of  an  institution  or  a  practice,  plausible  moral  argu- 
ments in  its  support  are  not  difficult  to  find;  when  influences  from  various 
sources  begin  to  combine  against  the  evil,  then  the  true  principles  of  ethics 
come  to  their  aid  and  hasten  the  common  result. 


62  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

intimately  associated,  and  the  religious  organization  had 
been  looked  upon  as  very  largely  a  branch  of  the  political. 
This  view  of  the  relationship  contained  a  great  danger 
for  the  growing  church — the  danger  of  being  absorbed  in 
the  state,  of  losing  all  independence  of  development,  and 
of  being  diverted  from  its  own  proper  work  to  serve  polit- 
ical ends.  It  was  undoubtedly  this  danger  which  forced 
the  early  church  to  develop  so  clearly  the  doctrine  of 
independence  of  state  control  which  is  involved  in  Chris- 
tianity and  to  insist  upon  it  so  strongly  against  Roman 
emperors  and  German  kings. 

That  the  modern  complete  separation  of  church  and 
state,  as  we  have  it  in  the  United  States,  has  grown  out 
of  a  protest  again  the  position  of  the  church  itself  on 
this  question,  is  not  a  proof  that  the  separation  of  church 
and  state  is  not  an  outgrowth  of  Christian  teaching,  but 
furnishes  us  only  a  further  instance  of  the  fact  that  the 
later  church,  as  a  whole,  did  not  remain  true  to  the  fun- 
damental principles  of  Christianity,  and  that  these  had 
to  be  recovered  by  a  reformation  of  some  kind.  When 
the  church  had  secured  its  independence  of  the  state, 
and  perfected  its  organization,  and  grown  strong,  it  went 
a  step  further  and  asserted  the  right  of  the  church  to 
control  the  state.  That  this  principle  in  practical  opera- 
tion is  as  dangerous  as  the  other,  which  absorbs  the 
church  in  the  state,  it  needs  no  argument  to  prove;  but 
it  also  needs  none  to  prove  that  both  are  equally  foreign 
to  the  teachings  of  Christianity. 

The  gain  to  civilization  from  the  complete  separation 
of  church  and  state  is  easily  seen.  It  is  an  essential 
condition  of  free  thought  and  free  discussion  that  the 
totally  distinct  spheres  of  the  two  institutions  should  be 
recognized,  and  without  it  intellectual  progress,  except 
in  the  realm  of  theory  and  barren  speculation,  would  be, 
if  not  impossible,  beset  with  almost  insurmountable 
difficulties. 


THE   ADDITION   OF   CHRISTIANITY  63 

Finally,  Christianity  had  awakened  in  a  part  of  the 
ancient  society  a  new  hopefulness  and  energy  and  pro- 
ductive power  even  before  the  Germans  had  brought  in 
the  reinforcement  of  their  vigorous  life.  How  much  this 
might  have  amounted  to  had  the  Germans  not  come, 
and  had  the  conditions  of  the  following  age  been  favorable, 
cannot  be  said;  but  it  is  a  result  deserving  of  notice  both 
as  showing  the  tendency  of  Christianity  and  as  indicating 
undoubtedly  one  of  the  sources  of  a  reviving  civilization 
soon  to  come. 

The  example  of  this  influence  of  Christianity,  to  which 
attention  has  been  most  frequently  called,  is  the  con- 
trast between  the  contemporary  pagan  and  Christian  lit- 
eratures from  the  third  century  on.  The  pagan  is  more 
refined  and  polished,  but  it  is  empty  and  barren,  spirit- 
less imitation  of  classic  models.  The  Christian  literature 
of  the  same  generations  is  cruder  and  less  elegant,  but  it 
is  full  of  spirit  and  vigor  and  energetic  life.  There  is 
something  to  be  said  and  some  purpose  in  saying  it. 

In  closing  this  account  one  cannot  avoid  recurring  to 
what  was  implied  at  the  outset.  It  is  impossible  not  to 
feel  the  incompleteness  of  any  statement  of  the  influence 
of  Christianity  upon  civilization.  Some  of  the  more  ob- 
vious and  apparent  results  can  be  mentioned,  but  its  full 
work  cannot  be  traced.  This  is  mainly  for  the  reason 
stated:  its  operation  lies  in  the  realm  of  the  silent  and 
unobserved  forces  which  act  upon  the  individual  char- 
acter and  the  springs  of  action,  but  which  can,  in  the 
nature  of  the  case,  leave  no  record  of  themselves  for  later 
time. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  GERMAN  CONQUEST  AND  THE  FALL  OF  ROME 

With  the  introduction  of  one  more,  the  four  chief 
sources  of  our  civilization  were  brought  together.  The 
Germans  had  waited  long.  That  restless  movement  of 
their  tribes  in  search  of  new  lands  which  overwhelmed 
the  empire  in  the  fifth  century  had  begun  five  hundred 
years  earlier.  The  invasion  of  the  Cimbri  .and  Teutgnes 
at  the  end  of  the  second  century  e.  c.  had  held  Rome  in 
terror  for  a  decade,  and  Julius  Caesar,  fifty  years  later,  had 
found  his  opportunitvJ:o  begin  the  conquest  of  Paul  in 
excelling  the  already  successful  army  of  the  German 
Ariovistus  from  its  occupation  of  Gallic  territory^!  If  it 
had  not  been  for  the  Romans  the  German  occupation 
of  western  Europe  would  have  followed  at  once,  more 
slowly  perhaps  than  when  it  actually  occurred,  but  with- 
out a  check.  But  now  they  had  been  forced  to  wait  for 
centuries,  learning  always  more  and  more  of  the  wonders 
and  riches  of  the  desired  lands,  growing  constantly  more 
and  more  eager  to  possess  them,  striving,  many  genera- 
tions of  them,  to  find  some  weak  spot  through  which  they 
might  force  their  way,  but  always  held  back.  At  last 
their  time  came. 

The  Germans  were  by  nature  restless  and  fond  of  ad- 
venture. There  was  overpopulation  at  home,  and  the 
lack  of  land  to  support  their  people,  with  their  primi- 
tive methods  of  agriculture,  was  seriously  felt.  It  was 
this  necessity  to  find  more  land  for  their  growing  num- 
bers which  was,  beyond  question,  the  impelUng  force  in 
their  earlier  attacks  and  later  conquest  of  the  Roman 

64 


CHE    GERMAN    CONQUEST  65 

Empire.  But  the  first  successful  invasion,  the  first  per- 
manent occupation  of  Roman  territory  was  not  brought 
about  by  either  oi  these  causes. 

Upon  the  great  Germanic  kingdom  of  the  Goths,  which 
had  been  formed  by  the  genius  of  Ermanaric  just  after 
the  middle  of  the  fourth  century  and  which  occupied  a 
considerable  part  of  European  Russia,  stretching  from  the 
Don  to  the  Danube,  fell  an  invasion  of  the  Huns.  They 
were  a  Mongolian  or  Tartar  race,  frightful  to  the  sight, 
skilled  in  their  peculiar  tactics,  swift  to  attack,  vanish- 
ing before  the  return  blow,  and  they  were  too  strong  for 
the  more  civilized  Goths.  Of  the  two  tribal  divisions  of 
the  Gothic  race  the  greater  part  of  the  Ostrogoths,  or 
East  Goths,  submitted  to  the  Huns,  were  incorporated 
in  their  empire,  and  remained  subject  to  it  and  tributary 
to  its  army  until  that  empire  fell  to  pieces  a  century 
later.  The  Visigoths,  however,  fell  back  before  the  ad- 
vance of  the  Huns,  and  appeared  on  the  Danube  frontier 
as  suppliants  for  the  Roman  protection.  It  was  granted 
them  and  they  were  transported  to  the  southern  bank. 
It  was  a  danget-ous  experiment,  but  all  went  well  at  first, 
and  all  might  have  continued  to  go  well  even  with  so 
great  a  risk.  But  the  smallest  risk  is  too  great  for  a 
state  rotten  with  political  corruption.  The  opportunity 
for  plunder  was  too  great  to  be  resisted  by  the  officers 
in  charge,  and  they  forced  the  Goths  to  buy  the  food 
which  should  have  been  given  them,  and  sold  them  back 
their  hostages,  and  sold  them  back  their  arms.  The  trea- 
son which  is  latent  in  every  form  of  the  spoils  doctrine 
could  hardly  go  farther  than  this.  The  patience  of  a 
German  race  with  arms  in  its  hands  under  brutal  mis- 
treatment was  soon  exhausted,  and  they  burst  into  a 
flame  of  revolt,  swept  everything  before  them,  and  at 
last,  far  within  the  bounds  of  the  empire,  a  hostile  Ger- 
man tn'l-iP  f^PQfrr>ypH  i^  RoTTfan  army  and  ^^^^W  thpF.m- 
peror  Valens.  ,       ,  ~^"~^ 


66  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

This  crossing  of  the  Danube  frontier,  in  376  a.  d.,  and 
this  battle  of  gadrianople,  in  378,  are  the  events  which 
mark  the  beginning  of  the  permanent  occupation  ofJ;he 
Roman  Empire  by  the  German  tribes. 

It  "was  the  beginning  of  the  age  of  conquest,  but  the 
empire  was  already  largely  German.  Julius  Cassar  had 
begun  the  practice  of  enlisting  German  auxiliaries  in  the 
Roman  armies,  and,  although  the  practice  had  grown 
very  slowly  at  first,  in  the  later  years  it  had  assumed  enor- 
mous proportions,  until  whole  armies  were  German,  and 
entire  German  tribes,  under  the  command  of  their  native 
chiefs,  and  preserving  all  their  tribal  organization,  en- 
tered the  Roman  service.  Such  tribes  had  been  settled 
in  lands  along  the  frontier  on  condition  of  keeping  out 
all  others.  If  possible,  even  larger  numbers  had  been  in- 
troduced as  slaves.  From  the  days  of  Marius  on,  in 
larger  and  smaller  bodies,  the  influx  had  been  constant 
until  they  were  present  everywhere — in  the  towns  as 
house  slaves,  in  the  country  as  coloni  bound  to  the  soil. 
In  the  conquest  these  Germans  already  within  the  em- 
pire were  no  doubt  a  more  important  element  than  the 
records  indicate.  The  indifference  of  the  inhabitants  to 
the  German  occupation,  which  is  everywhere  manifest, 
was  very  likely  due  in  some  part  to  the  large  number 
of  Germans  already  around  them,  and,  in  some  cases, 
as  in  the  last  invasion  of  Alaric,  we  can  get  a  glimpse  of 
the  positive  aid  they  rendered;  in  a  larger  number,  un- 
questionably, of  the  cases  which  were  recorded,  we  find 
them  the  bravest  and  most  effective  of  Rome's  defenders. 

The  great  Emperor  TheodoMus  was  able  to  restore  order 
in  the  East  and  to  hold  the  Visigoths  in  check  as  nomi- 
nal Roman  subjects — indeed  as  faithful  allies  of  his,  but 
they  retained  as  their  own  the  lands  which  they  had 
occupied  in  the  Danube  valley.  On  his  death,  in  3^5, 
they  began  to  move  again^jncitedperhaps  by  some  change 

-ib§_£olic}L  of  the  government  towards  them  which 


I  THE    GERMAN   CONQUEST    N  /      6?       ^ 

they  regarded  as  a  slight,  impelled,  more  likely,  byythe 
race  restlessness  or  by  the  ambition  of  the  youngi^laric,    ('^' 
now  just  coming  to  the  leadership.    /They  ravaged  Thrace,  ^ 
threatened    Constantinople,    turned    south    into    Greece,      *- 
past  Athens,  which  was  spared,  and  mto~tlie  Peloponne- 
sus.    Here"^Alaric  was  checked  by  the  skill  of  Stilicho, 
the  Vandal,  gua.rdiajn_oLthe^W£St£rn  _en^^  and,  though 

not  g.ctuaily  subdued,  accepted  bribes  and  titles  and  re-    "^ 
turned  to__thp  Hannbp  valU^y.     In  a  few  years  he  was^^:*^ 
on  the  march  again,  this  time  towards_th£_\v:est.     Once      ^ 
more  .Stilicho  forced  him  back  (402)7but  this  time  he 
took  a  position  near  the  head  of  the  Adriatic,  from  which 
it  would  be  easy  to  turn  in  either  direction  as  circum- 
stances might  invite. 

In  the  meantime  the  storm  was  descending  from  every 
quarter.  The  fatal  weakness  of  the  empire  in  this  final 
period,  the  want  of  an  army,  had  made  it  necessary  to 
call  in  a  part  of  the  frontier  garrisons  to  meet  the  attack 
of  Alaric.  The  frontiers  could  no  longer  be  defended. 
One  great  horde  of  men,  whose  exact  tribal  relationships 
are  not  known,  under  command  of  Radagaisus,  poured 
down  from  western  Germany  into  the  neighborhood  of 
Florence  (405).  Here  what  seems  to  have  been  the  main 
body  was  outgeneralled  and  annihilated  by  Stilicho,  and 
inflicted  no  injury  upon  the  empire,  beyond  the  increased 
exhaustion  which,  in  its  weakened  condition,  followed 
every  such  strain. 

But  far  worse  things  than  this  were  happening  else- 
where in  this  opening  decade  of  the  fifth  century — the 
most  awful  moment  of  the  barbarian  deluge.  (  ^Sntaih, 
_GaiiL__a£d_Sp2in,  abandoned  by  their  rightful  defend^s, 
harried  by  invading  tribes  and  by  revolted  troops  and  the 
ephemeral  emperors  of  their  creation,  fell  out  of  the  em- 
pire never  to  be  recovered  again  except  in  name.  An 
army  of  related  tribes — Burgundians,  Vandals,  Suevj^ 
Alani::— broke  thrnn^^i^thp.  T^hine  frontier  at  the  end  of 


68  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  year  406,  and  aft^r  a  few  years  of  aimless  plundering 
fouad  permanent  homes  within  the  empire — the  Burgun- 
(jjans  in  eastern  Gaul,  in  lands  which  have  retained  their 
name,  and  as^  nominal  subjects  of  the  emperor,  whose 
sanction  they  received,  but  in  reahty  as  an  indepen- 
d£nt_state.  Thp^thprTn'hp'^  pa';c;prl  through  the  Pyrenees 
into  Spain,  which  they  carved  into  kingdoms  for  tKem- 
selves,  lasting  with  varying  degrees  of  permanence.  In 
the  following  year,  407,  the  last  Roman  troops  aban- 
dojoed  Britain  to  its  fate  and,  following  a  new  CoiTsTan- 
tine,  whom  they  had  proclaimed  emperor    crossed  over 

^,     into  Gaul  to  add  to  the  confusion  there. 

'  In  Italy  the  tragedy  of  the  empire  drew  rapidly  to  a 

cKmax.  Stilicho,  justly  or  unjustly,  excited  the  suspi- 
cion of  the  Emperor  Honorius  and  was  put  to  death  in 
40^  Alaric's  opportunitv  had  ,.come.  Without  a  mo- 
ment's delay  he  swept  into  Italy,  fook  possession  of  all 
the  open  country,  and  finally,  in  410,  stormed  the  city 
itself,  now  for  almo^La, thousand  years  untouched  by  an 
enemy.  Wh'^t  Allric  v^ould  have  done  with  the  penin- 
sula, now  virtually  his  conquest,  no  one  can  say.  As  he 
was  on  the  point  of  crossing  over  into  Africa  to  com- 
pel that  province  to  forward  the  usual  food  supplies 
to  Rome,  he  died  suddenly,  and  the  Visigoths  elected 
Athaulf ,  his  brother-in-law,  to  be  their  KngT^  He  seems 
to  have  thought  it  hopeless  to  try  to  found  a  permanent 
kingdom  in  Italy  and  led  his  peo|3le  into  G^auJ.  There, 
without  any  formal  alliance  with  the  Romans,  he  married 
his  prisoner,  Placidia,  the  sister  of  Honorius,  and  aided 
to  put  down  the  usurping  tyrants.  SfteT  his  death  his 
successor,  WaUia^  formed  a  compact  with  the  emperor, 
and  recovered  for  the  empire  j,  part  of  the  territory  which 
had  been_occup2edby  the  Germans  m  Spam,  and  finally, 
in  419,  by  a  new  treaty,  the  Visigoths  received  3_perma- 
nent  grant  of  land  in  southwestern  Gaul,  as  nomina 
Roman  subjects.     This  formed  thenBegifinihg  of  tb^i  V'«;' 


THE   GERMAN   CONQUEST  69 

gothic  kingdom,  which  lasted  until  the  invasion  of  the 
Saracens  in  the  eighth  century.  From  this  beginning  it 
gradually  spread  towards  the  north  until  it  reached  the 
Loire,  and  towards  the  south  until  it  embraced  the  whole 
Spanish  peninsula.  As  they  had  been  the  first  to  break 
the  Roman  frontier,  so  they  were  the  first  to  found  a 
permanent  and  recognized  kingdom  within  the  empire — 
the  recognized  kingdom  of  the  Burgundians  being  a  year 
or  two  later. 

Nearly  allJJl£_Gexmans  who  had  settled  JnSpain  were 
gradually  conquered  and  absorbed  in  the  Visigothic  state. 
But  the  yj,nd?^k)  in  420^  abandoned  jtheir  Spamsh  lan9s 
anHj-rngsH  ^"^^^t  i"^^  Afrira  According  to  a  doubtful 
story  they  were  invited  by  a  disaft'ected  Roman  governor; 
more  likely  they  dreaded  the  approach  of  the  Visigoths, 
who  had,  in  their  first  invasion  of  Spain,  destroyed  a  part 
of  the  Vandal  race.  In  Africa  they  met  with  some  vig- 
orous resistance,  but  in  a  few  years  had  gained  posses- 
sion of  it  all,  and  rapidly  developed  a  naval  power  which 
became  the  terror  of  the  Mediterranean,  even  as  far  as 
Constantinople.  In  .4,5^  they  seized  the  city  of  Rome 
and  held  it  for  a  few  days,  packing  it jnore  savagely  than 
Alaxic  had  done. 

Just  at  this  time  a  danger  far  more  serious  than  came 
from  any  German  invasion  threatened  the  dying  empire 
—more  serious  because  it  would  mean  the  triumph  of  a 
more  hopeless  Asiatic  and  Mongolian  barbarism.  The 
invasion  of  the  Huns,  which  had  set  the  Germans  in 
motion,  had  resulted  in  the  formation  of  a  Hunnic  em- 
pire north  of  the  Danube,  to  which  most  of  Germany  was 
subject.  I  Now  a  great  king  had  come  to  the  throne,  At- 
jila,  the  Scourge  of  God.  Seemingly  afire  with  that  pur- 
poseless, senseless  rage  of  conquest  which  has  led  more 
than  one  devastating  Mongolian  host,  he  fell,  with  his 
great  army,  in  which  many  German  nations  were  serving, 
on  Gaul.     But  the  MongoUans  have  never  yet  been  able 


70  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

to  do  in  the  West  what  they  have  so  often  done  in  the 
East,  in  the  way  of  almost  unlimited  conquest,  and  in 
Gaul  his  invasion  was_speedily  stopped.  Aetius,  himself 
of  barbarian  descent,  had  succeeded  in  adding  to  the 
Roman  army  which  he  had  brought  together,  the  forces 
of  the  German  states  in  Gaul,  Visigoths,  Burgundians, 
and  Franks,  persuaded  that  their  own  best  interests  were 
identical  with  Rome's.  In  the  great  battle  of  the  na- 
tions which  followed,  in  4^1,  in  the  Catalaunian  plain, 
near  Troj^es,  German  and  Rornan  stood  together  for  Eu- 
ropean and  Aryan  civilization  against  Asiatic  and  Mon- 
golian, and. saved  the  day.  In  the  next  year  Attila  in- 
vaded  Italy,  but  almost  at  the  beginning  of  his  march 
turned  back  and  i:elir£d_to  his  own  lands.  Why  we  do 
not  know,  perhaps  impressed  by  the~solemn  embassy  of 
Pope  Leo  J.  more  probably  hindered  by  some  more  ma- 
terial difficulty.  Hardly  had  he  reached  home  when  he 
suddenly  died,  his  empire  fell  to  pieces,  and  the  Germans, 
who  had  been  subject  to  it,  again  became  independent. 

In  the  years  of  Attila's  invasions  the  Saxons^  were  gaiii- 
itig;  tjieir  first  permanent  hold  upon  Britain.  As  early 
as  the  end  of  the  third  century  their  piratical  attacks  had 
begun.  Exactly  after  the  style  of  their  relatives,  the 
vikings  of  a  later  time,  they  had  sailed  along  the  coast 
and  plundered  any  unguarded  spot.  The  Romans  had 
been  obliged  to  organize  a  special  coast-guard,  under  the 
count  of  the  Saxon  Shore,  to  protect  the  province  from 
their  raids.  When  the  Roman  troops  left  Britain  to  its 
fate,  in  407,  the  Saxons  soon  found  out  their  opportu- 
nity. The  attacks  of  another  enemy,  the  barbarian  Celts 
of  the  north  and  west,  upon  the  Romanized  inhabitants, 
only  made  it  easier  for  this  more  dangerous  foe  to  gain 
a  permanent  foothold,  even  with  the  consent  of  the  pro- 
vincials. But  once  landed  they  could  not  be  kept  within 
bounds.  More  and  more  came;  many  little  kingdoms 
were  founded,  till  almost  the  whole  eastern  and  southern 


THE   GERMAN   CONQUEST  7I 

shores  were  occupied.  The  resistance  of  the  Celts  to  the 
advanc£jif.th£  Saxons .seeiQs.tQJiaYg  been,  however,  much 
the  most  obstinate  and^ubiara  5sJiidL,.any__German  in- 
vasion  encountered.  The  result  of  this  was  that  the  Ger- 
man newcomers  did  not  settle  themselves  down  here, 
as  elsewhere,  in  the  midst  of  a  Roman  population,  which 
they  treated  to  all  intents  and  purposes  as  on  an  equal- 
ity with  themselves,  and  which  far  outnumbered  them. 
If  the  provincials  were  not  actually  exterminated  or  driven 
back,  which  seems  improbable,  they  were  reduced  to  a 
decidedly  inferior  position,  very  likely  to  slavery,  so  that 
they  were  able  to  exercise  no  such  influence  upon  their 
conquerors  as  other  provincials  did.^ 

In  the  meantime  Italy  itself  was  lost  to  the  empire, 
except  for  a  brTef  recovery  in  the  next  century.  The 
death  of  Valentinian  III,  in  455,  whose  capital  indeed 
had  not  been  at  Rome  but  at  Ravenna,  had  brought  the' 
house  of  Theodosiug_tr)  an_end.  A  rapid  succession  of 
powerless  emperors  followed,  nearly  all  of  them  appointed 
and  deposed  by  the  leaders  of  the  German  troops,  who 
were  now  the  only  protectors  of  Italy.  Finally,  the  last 
of  them,  or  the  one  who  has  been  traditionally  considered 
the  last, ^Romulus  nicknamjed^/Uigustulus,  was  deposed  in 
^6,  and  the  leadeL_2i  the  Germans,  Odovacaj,  deter- 
mined to  appoint  no  successor.  An  embassy  was  sent  to 
Constantinople  to  recognize  Zeno  as  emperor  of  the  re- 
united empire  and  to  ask  him  to  appoint  Odovacar  as 
his  representative  in  Italy.  This  is  the^^-called  Fall 
of  4;he_ .Western  Empirej^  but  it  was  not  recognized  as 
such  by  either  the  Eastern  or  the  Western  Romans,  or 
by  the  Germans  themselves,  even  though  Odovacar's 
request  had  not  been  granted  by  Zeno.     Odovacar  ruled 

*  That  the  Anglo-Saxons,  however,  continued  some  of  the  Roman  ar- 
rangements, especially  in  the  matter  of  the  villa  or  farm  organization, 
seems  probable,  and  further  investigation  is  likely  lo  increase  our  knowledge 
of  their  indebtedness. 


72  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  Germans  who  were  in  Italy  as  their  king,  and  he  was 
at  the  EeliB  of  a  practically  independent  kingdom,  but  he 
did  not  imderstand  that  fact  as  clearly  as  we  do,  and, 
in  thetheory  of  the  time,  he  was  still  commanding  a 
Roman  army  and  guarding  a  Roman  province  _under  the 
eniperor.  I  All  the  provinces  of  the  Western  Empire  were 
now  occupied  by  German  kingdoms,  except  a  fragment 
here  and  there;  but  all  those  on  the  continent  still  re- 
garded themselves  as  in  the  empire  and  acknowledged 
at  least  a  nominal  subjection  to  the  emperor. 

Odovacar's  reign  was  not  long.  On  the  breaking  up  of 
Attila's  kingdom  the  Ostrogoths  had  been  receivid  into 
tli£-£iBpire^and  given  lands  southj>f  the  Danube.  Here, 
more  recently,  they  had  become  very  troublesome  under 
their  young  king  Theodoric^  and  when  he^nally  pr'^p'^'^fd 
Vto  Zeno  to  recover  Italy  from  Odovacar,  the  offer  was 
V^eadily  accepted.  The  conquest  was  not  altogether  easy 
and  occupied  some  years;  but  it  was  at  last  completed, 
and  Odovacar  was  slain  by  the  hand  of  Theodoric.  The 
Ostrogothic  kingdom  thus  established  was  the  most  re- 
markable of  all  the  early  German  states.  Theodoric  had 
spent  his  early  life  as  a  hostage  in  Constantinople,  and 
if  he  did  not  learn  to  read  and  write  there,  he  learned 
many  other  things.  If  we  may  judge  by  the  tendency  of 
his  reign,  rather  than  by  any  specific  acts  which  prove 
his  policy  beyond  dispute,  he  seems  to  have  recognized 
more  consciously  than  any  other  barbarian  king  the  fact 
that  any  permanent  state  must  be  based  on  a  union  of 
the  two  populations  and  the  two  civiUzations  in  a  new 
common  nation.  If  it  is  impossible  to  show  that  he  de- 
liberately sought  such  a  union,  it  is  certain  that  his  policy, 
if  it  could  have  been  continued  for  a  generation  or  two 
longer,  would  have  produced  such  a  result.  He  continued 
in  operation  the  Roman  laws,  judicial  tribunals,  adminis- 
trative system,  and  taxes.  He  divided  lands  among  the 
Goths  without  exciting  the  hatred  of  the  Romans,  and 


THE   GERMAN   CONQUEST  73 

Romans  and  Goths  served  together  in  tribunals  for  the 
hearing  of  cases  in  which  the  parties  were  of  the  two 
peoples.  Agriculture  and  commerce  revived,  means  of 
communication  were  improved,  and  art  and  literature 
seemed  to  feel  new  life.  Order  was  maintained,  property 
was  secure,  and  toleration  enforced.  But  more  than  a 
single  generation  is  needed  to  bring  about  a  real  umon 
between  two  such  widely  differing  races  as  these.  Prog- 
ress under  Theodoric  was  too  rapid  for  endurancej  in- 
deed, in  many  cases,  it  seemed  to  be  more  real  than  it 
actually  was,  and  after  his  death  discord  and  discontent, 
held  down  by  the  power  of  his  will,  revealed  themselves 
rapidly.  In  another  generation  the  Ostrogothic  kingdom 
and  the  Ostrogothic  race  were  things  of  the  past. 

There  had  been  a  great  rjecqyery  of  strength  in  the 
empire  in  the  East.  TEe  army  had  been  improved  and 
the  finances  set  in  order.  And  now  the  great  Emperor 
Justinian  had  come  to  the  throne  with  the  ambition  to 
restore  the^old  control  over  the  West,  and  to  bring  back 
as  many  of  the  provinces  as  possible  to  actual  obedience. 
He  had  not  merely  an  army  and  resources,  but  he  had 
the  no  less  necessary  condition  of  success,  one  of  the 
great  generals  of  history,  BeUsarius.  A  quarrel  in  the 
Vandal  royal  family,  the  deposmg  of  a  king  descended 
on  the  mother's  side  from  the  imperial  house  of  Theo- 
dosius,  gave  him  an  opportunity  to  make  his  first  attack 
on_Africa.  and  iq  a  brief  rampaign  that  pro^'^^nrft  was 
restored  to  the  empire.  Then  came  the  turn  of  Italy, 
and  although  the  Goths  made  a  most  heroic  resistance 
and  were  able  to  prolong  the  struggle  for  twenty  years, 
the  odds  against  them  were  too  great.  Their  kingdom 
fell,  and  one  of  the  most  attractive  of  the  earlyGeriaaJi 
imtinns  rlisappparpd  from  hiRto^y,  thp  few  survivors  jnin- 
ii\g  the  Visigoths  in  Spain_  I 

A  very  important  result  of  this  brief  recovery  of  ItalM 
_JbyL  the  Roman  power  wras-th^introducticni-tiiere,  into  use 


74  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 


and  into  the  schools,  ot^'e  Justinian  Code.  The  Ostro- 
goths had  made  use  of  the  Theodosian  Code  for  such 
Roman  law  as  they  had  need  of,  and  the  other  German 
states  continued  to  do  this.  But  now  the  more  complete 
— ^  Justinian  Code  was  brought  to  Italy  and  survived  there 
to  be  made  the  foundation,  after  some  centuries,  of  a 
renewed  and  most  influential  study  of  the  Roman  laW; 
through  all  the  West. 

The  southern  part  of  Italy  was  destined  to  remain 
under  the  government  of  the  emperor  at  Constantinople 
for  five  hundred  vqarsiLbut  th^snortjaern  B©,rt  was  speed- 
ily  lost.  It  was  ^ccuppcd,  after  mteen  years,  by  the 
iJEaombards,  coming  from  the  same  rep;ion  as  the  Ostro- 
goths,  the  last  of  the  invasions  of  this  period,  and  the 
last  kingdom  to  be  established^,  on  Roman  soil.  Their 
occupation  of  the  north,  however,  was  never  complete, 
j^enice  remained  independent,  nominally  under  the  em- 
peror, and  Ravenna  and  a  strip  along  the  eastern  coast 
and  across  to  the  western,  including  Rome,  remained 
under  the  Roman  governor,  the  exarch  of  Ravenna. 
Rome-Jgy^^  -gxadually  cut  off  from  these  other  lands  by 
the  slow  Lombard  advance,  and  the  opportunity  was  pre- 
sented to  the  bishops  of  Rome,  which  they  were  not  slow 
to  utiHze,  to  become  virtually  independent  and  to  found 
a  little  principaHty  as  temporal  rulers.  This  forms  an 
intimate  part,  however,  of  a  wider  current  of  events  in 
the  West  which  we  must  soon  take  up. 

One  fact  of  very  great  importance_for  al)  this  long  pe- 
riod of  conquest,  but  one  easy  to  be  overlooked  in  the 
history  of  more  stirring  events,  is  that  the-life  of  the 
prrtvinrift],  pn  i^he-^^mw^try  lands  and  jii^the  towns,  went 
much  the  same  as  before.  He  was^subjected  to  a 
rapid  change  of  masters;  he  was  deprived  now  and  again 
of  a  part  of  his  lands;  he  had  to  submit  to  occasional 
plundering;  life  and  property  were  not  secure.  But  he 
lived  on  and  produced  enough  to  keep  the  world  alive. 


THE   GERMAN   CONQUEST  75 

He  took  himself  no  part  in  the  wars.  He  had  appar- 
ently little  interest  in  the  result;  indeed,  the  coming  in 
of  the  German  was  often  an  improvement  of  condition 
for  him.  He  had  not  been  altogether  prosperous  or  se- 
cure before.  At  any  rate,  he  kept  at  work,  and  he  held 
to  his  language,  and  to  his  legal  and  economic  customs, 
and  to  his  religion,  and  he  became  thus  a  most  important 
but  disregarded  factor  of  the  future. 

Such  is,  in  brief,  and  with  a  single  exception,  reserved 
for  separate  treatment,  the  history  of  the  introduction  of 
the  German  peoples  into  the  classic  world.     As  we  pass 
in  outline  the  history  of  this  conquest  we  cannot  avoid 
the  question  why  this  Roman  power,  which  so  short  a 
time  beforehand  made  the  conquest  of  the  world,  was  able 
to  offer  no  more  efifectual  resistance  to  these  invaders. 
If  we  examine  carefully  the  series  of  events,  the  imme- 
diate reason  is  not  dijB&cult  to  see.     The  Roman  _{iftwer 
was  exhausted  when  the  final  attack  came^     There  is  no 
evidence  that  the  German  onset  was  in  any  decisive  way 
more  violent  now  than  two  centuries  earlier,  but  at  the 
middle  of  the  second  century  the  Romans  were  still  able 
to  repel  the  attack  with  success,  if  not  easily.     It  woulcj.^^ 
perhaps  be  more  accurate  to  say  that  Marni!^  Aiireliu^  r  *  )^ 
in  his  struggle  with  the  Quadi  and  Marcomanni  was  the    ^   < 
first  to_ feel  the  growing  exhaustion  oJ  the,  state,  and  tb^V  ^ 
first   to   resort   to   the   doubtful   expedients  so   common   t    ) 
later  to  maintain  the  strength  of  the  army.     But  the     V 
state  still  appeared  strong   and   was,  in  reality,  strong      S, 
enough  for  two  centuries  to  come  to  keep  off  its  enemies         e 
in  some  way.     But  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  even 
that   appearance   m°sTrengtH""was~gonei     The   frontiers 
could  rm_Ionger  bcguardedj  the  provinces  were  empty, 
the  capital  itself  hardly  defended.   'The  Roman  strength 
was  exhausted.     But  in  saying  this  we  only  remove  the 
question  one  step  farther  back.     What  are  the  reasons 


76  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

why  this  Roman  race,  the  strongest  of  the  world  up  to 
this  time,  had  declined  so  rapidly  and  now  fell  easily  a 
prey  to  enemies  it  had  once  overcome? 

It  is  impossible  to  give  in  a  few  paragraphs  any  com- 
plete and  accurate  conception  of  the  causes  which  led  to 
the  fall  of  Rome.  Those  causes  were  so  numerous  and  so 
involved  with  one  another  in  their  action,  they  were  at 
work  through  so  long  a  time,  the  full  understanding  of 
their  operation  requires  so  extensive  a  knowledge  of  the 
laws  which  govern  the  economic  and  political  action  of 
men,  that  volumes  would  be  required  for  a  clear  presen- 
tation of  the  subject.  A  brief  account  of  the  matter  is 
made  still  further  difficult  from  the  fact  that  the  fall  of 
Rome  has  been  very  often  made  the  subject  of  partial 
and  incomplete  treatment  in  order  to  prove  some  particu- 
lar point,  perhaps  to  make  vivid  the  contrast  between  the 
Christian  church  and  the  heathen  society  which  it  came 
to  regenerate,  perhaps  to  make  manifest  the  political 
.  dangers  which  arise  from  the  moral  corruption  of  a  people. 
^-^  Undoubtedly,  the  Christian  church  had  a  mission  of  re- 
generation of  great  importance  for  the  ancient  society,  as 
well  as  for  the  individual,  but  no  progress  is  made  towards 
proving  this  fact  by  picturing  the  dark  side  of  that  so- 
ciety only,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  its  virtues.  Undoubt- 
edly, als(^-J3ioral  corruption  is  a  most  fruitful  source  of 
political  ruin,  but  hardly  in  the  way  in  which  the  profes- 
sional moralists  would  sometimes  have  us  think.  What 
can  be  attempted  here  is  barely  more  than  an  enumera- 
tion, as  complete  as  possible  within  these  limits,  of  the 
various  causes  which  worked  together  to  undermine  the 
strength  of  the  Roman  state. 

In  general,  it  may  be  said,  that  these  causes  are  the 

CRg,mp_as  those  whirh  Ipd  tl>,th^verthrow  ofJjie_xgpublic 
ind  the  establishment  of  the  empire*  Coming  plainly 
into  view  by  the  close  oi  the  second  ii^unic  War,  they  con- 
tinue  in  operation  through  the  whole  later  history  un- 


THE   GERMAN   CONQUEST  77 

checked,  or  barely  checked  for  the  moment  here  and 
there,  and  bringing  with  them  naturally  other  related 
causes  and  increasingly  disastrous  results.  ThQ.  estab- 
lishment  of  the  empjre  at  the  beginning  of  the  Christian 
era  was  undoubtedly,  in  the  condition  of  tEmgs  at  The 
time,  a  political  necessity,  but  that  is  not  the  same  thing 
as  saying  that  the  causes  which  led  to  the  fall  of  the  re- 
public were  beneficial  causes;  and  no  one  would  probably 
seriously  maintain,  though  some  have  seemed  to  imply  as 
much,  that  the  Romans  would  have  found  it  impossible 
to  adapt  the  government  of  the  repubhc  to  the  wider 
demands  of  the  empire,  had  they  preserved  their  earlier 
characteristics.  The  monarchy  became  a  political  neces- 
si,ty+_not  because  the  Romans  were  unable  to  govern  the 
empire,  but  because  they  were  no  longer  able  to  govern  f 
themselves,  and  the  causes  which  had  brought  themn;o  \^. 
this  pass  continuing  to  act  as  before,  in  the  end  exhausted  • 
the  power  of  the  empire.  That  the  republic  fell  under  the 
influence  of  these  causes  in  a  much  shorter  time  than 
the  empire  is  an  instance  of  the  abundantly  supported 
historical  principle  that  political  corruption  and  decline 
are  far  more  dangerous  to  a  democratic  government  than 
to  a  monarchy. 

The  causes  of  the  fall  of  Rome  may  be  roughly  divided  VK  0 1 
into  two  great  groups — first,  the  moral  cause'^  second,* 
t^  economic.     It  must  be  acknowledged,  however,  that*  *    * 
thisQivisiori  is  not  a  strictly  scientific  one.     The  two    ^^i 
classes   are  not   co-ordinate.     The   economic   causes   are 
more  immediate  in  their  action,  those  which  are  strictly 
moral  causes  are  more  indirect  and  remote.     They  ajce-r— -» 
the  causes  of  causes.     The  influence  of  personal  immQ- 1  j 
rahty  and  corruption  upon  the  state  has  often  been  made 
the  subject  of   careless  writing  and   sometimes  of  wild 
speculation  and  is  a  matter  which  needs  more  real  in- 
vestigation than  it  has  yet  received.     It  seems  to  be  al- 
together likely,  however,  that  such  an  investigation  will 


78  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

show  that  private  vice  becomes  dangerous  to  the  state 
only  where  it  is  translated  into  political  corruption  or 
economic  disease,  and  that  individual  immorality  may  go 
very  far — that  it  has  gone  in  some  actual  cases,  indeed, 
almost  if  not  quite  as  far  as  among  the  Romans — without 
involving  the  destruction  of  the  state,  if  it  does  not  af- 
fect the  public  life  or  the  economic  resources  of  the  na- 
tion. It  is  because  certain  forms  of  personal  vice  trans- 
late themselves  so  quickly  and  easily  into  public  causes 
that  the  morals  of  its  citizens  are  of  importance  to  the 
state,  as  a  matter  of  self-protection. 

The  vices  which  were  especially  prevalent  among  the 
Romans  were  precisely  of  this  sort.  These  were,  in  the 
first  place,  tbp  physical  vif.p'^ — drunkenness,  gluttony,  and 
Hcentiousness.  It  is  entirely  impossible  to  give  any  de- 
tailed account  of  the  condition  of  a  large  portion  of  the 
Roman  society  in  these  respects.  Fortunately,  it  is  not 
necessary.  The  description  has  been  so  often  attempted 
for  one  purpose  or  another  and  has  been  made  so  frank 
and  unreserved,  that  a  popular  impression  has  been  un- 
doubtedly created  that  these  vices  were  far  more  universal 
and  extreme  throughout  the  Roman  world  than  they 
really  were.  No  doubt  they  did  affect  certain  classes  of 
the  population — the  country  people,  the  middle  classes 
where  these  stiU  existed — to  a  greater  extent  than  a  cor- 
responding condition  would  in  modern  times,  because,  for 
one  reason,  of  the  existence  of  slavery,  and  yet  it  is  cer- 
tain that  the  extreme  cases  and  the  most  injurious  re- 
sults are  to  be  found  in  the  large  cities  and  among  the 
wealthy  class,  while  the  provinces  and  the  middle  classes 
were  comparatively  uncontaminated.  It  seems  probable, 
however,  though  by  no  means  certain,  that  the  influence 
of  these  vices  did  extend  far  enough  to  affect  the  national 
life.  Their  influence  upon  the  race,  where  it  is  felt,  is 
precisely  the  same  as  that  upon  the  individual.  Energy, 
will-power,  self-reliancejfl^ t^p  f«^p  <^f  ^glIl£[f;L-HgI}"^^i 


THE   GERMAN   CONQUEST  79 

and  the  recuperative  and  reproductive  power  declines  or 
disappears!  These  are  exacITylKeTesuTts  which  appeared, 
from  some  cause,  throughout  the  Roman  Empire  in  its 
last  age.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  to  which  attention  has 
been  called,  that,  though  many  of  the  Roman  towns  were 
still  strongly  walled,  and  though  the  Germans  were  very 
unskilled  in  the  art  of  siege,  yet,  while  numbers  of  the 
towns  maintain  themselves  for  a  time,  there  are  few  in- 
stances during  the  whole  period  of  the  conquest  of  heroic 
resistance  to  the  invaders  by  the  population  of  the  prov- 
inces. It  is  almost  always  a  barbarian  general  and  a  bar- 
barian army  which  undertakes  the  defence;  or,  where  we 
find  a  case  of  a  different  sort,  as  in  the  defence  of  Orleans 
against  the  Huns,  there  is  manifestly  present  a  new  ele- 
ment of  energy  and  self-reliance  not  supplied  by  the 
Roman  society  proper,  but  by  the  Christian  portion  of 
it.  Such  a  decline  of  the  national  will-power  it  would^ 
hardly  be  correct  to  trace  to  the  operation  of  this  one 
physical  influence  alone,  and  it  is  altogether  likely  that 
no  such  effect  would  have  followed  had  not  this  cause 
been  combined  with  others  which  are  to  be  noticed  later. 
Yet  it  must  be  kept  in  mind  that  this  influence  when 
present  is  usually  a  decisive  one  and  may  have  contrib- 
uted as  much,  or  more,  than  any  other  single  force  to 
the  common  result.  So  the  other  results  which^folloi^ed 
from  this  group  of  moral  causes — decline,  of  poputj^tion, 
inability  to  recover  losses  from  plagues  aiLdJ[am^fres/Nde-^ 
structionof  capital,  jnHiflerence  to  public  affairs— aje 
perhaps  best  looked  at  among  the  economic  causes,  where 
they  naturally  appear.  It  is  into  economic  causes,  prop- 
erly speaking,  that  the  physical  vices  translate  themselves 
when  they  affect  the  public  life. 

To  this  group  £>f  causes  we  must  add  the  operation  of 
the  intense  ancTd^p'erate  struggle  for  wealth  which  began 
under  the  republic  and  continued  under  the  empire — a  less 
conspicuous  feature,  perhaps  of  the  later  period,  but  not 


8o  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

less  fatal  in  its  effects.  Some  later  times  have  probably 
seen  as  inordinate  a  passion  for  wealth  as  the  Roman, 
and  as  crafty  scheming  to  get  it  without  earning  it,  and 
this  condition  of  things,  as  in  the  case  of  the  physical 
vices,  seems  to  become  a  serious  danger  to  the  state  only 
when  it  is  translated,  when  it  leads  to  the  misuse  of 
ofi&cial  position  or  legislative  power.  The  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances of  the  last  age  of  the  republic  made  this 
translation  into  a  political  cause  extremely  easy,  almost 
unavoidable.  The  government  of  lately  conquered  prov- 
inces, to  be  exploited  for  the  benefit  of  the  state,  offered 
a  secure  opportunity  for  extortion  and  peculation  which 
the  official,  trained  in  the  spirit  of  the  time,  could  hardly 
resist.  Decided  reformation  in  this  regard  was  certainly 
made  under  the  empire,  but  the  spirit  and  the  practice 
I  never  disappeared.  It  was  a  source  of  great  weakness 
to  the  empire  in  the  days  of  decline  and  a  fatal  obstacle 
to  thorough  reformation  that  so  large  a  proportion  of  the 
official  class  looked  upon  their  offices  as  a  source  of  gain 
or  advancement  and  were  ready  on  any  occasion  to  sacri- 
fice the  interests  of  the  state  to  their  own  private  interests.^ 

"TT^  When  we  turn  to  the  economic  causey  which  aided  in 
-"■""^the  fall  of  Rome  we  stand  appalled  at  their  number  and 

-=*— ^  variety.     It  would  seem  as  if,  when  the  empire  had  once 

started  on  the  downward  path,  all  things  worked  together 

against  it  and  all  the  springs  of  national  prosperity  were 

t  poisoned.     It  is  possible  here  to  point  out  only  the  most 

►^T*  •lo^^'^'i'tant  of  these  causes,  and,  in  such  a  brief  account, 
we  shall  find  our  way  to  a  clear  understanding  only  if  we 
remember  that  the  immediate  cause  of  the  fall  of  Rome 
vs^s  £xhaustiqn— exhaustion  of  resources  and  exhaustion 
©Lpopulation.  There  are  to  be  grouped  together,  then, 
the  most  decisive  causes  which  show  how  the  accumu- 
lated capital  of   the  empire— in  property  and  in  men — 

*  Sec  above,  p.  65,  the  extremely  important  instance  at  the  crossing  of 
the  Danube  by  the  Visigoths. 


THE    GERMAN   CONQUEST  8 1 

came  to  be  destroyed,  and  why  no  more  was  produced 
to  take  its  place.  y  , 

)^  SI  ay  fry  i<;  natn  rally  the  first  among  these  causes  to     Vc^ 
occur  to  mind,  and,  whatever  may  have  been  the  moral 
dangers  of  the  Roman  slave  system,  the  economic  evils         i 
which  it  worked  were  still  more  fatal  to  the  state.     In  ^ 
the  first  place,  it  was  a  system  wasteful  and  unproduc-^^ 
tive  of  men.     By  it  a  large  part  of  the  natural  population  ^■^wg 
of  the  empire,  for  this  was  probably,  even  in  the  later     ^ 
times,  the  chief  source  of  slaves,  was  placed  in  a  condi- 
tion^ not  merely  where  it  was  used  up  and  disappeared" 
wfth  fearful  rapidity,  but  also  where  it  tended  to  repro- 
duce itself  much  less  rapidly  than  it  would  have  done  as 
a  body  of  free  laborers.     In  this  way  there  was  probably 
always  a  considerable  loss  of  population,   certainly  the 
slave  system  went  far  to  prevent  what^should  have  been 
the  normal  increase  and  to  make  it  impossible  to  recover 
sudden  losses  of  population,  such  as  occurred  in  times  of*^.t 
pestilence.     Slavery  is  also  an  expensive  mean^  of  prp-^<^ 
diction.     The  returns  on  the  capital  invested,  except  in 
unusual  conditions,  are  small,  and  the  incentive  to  im- 
provement in  methods  of  production  extremely  sHght. 
The  history  of  our  Southern  States  since  the  Civil  War, 
as  compared  with  their  earlier  history,  shows  this  con- 
clusively.    And  it  _destrovs  capital  with  grpnt  r^pulity€   > 
Economicallv.  the  slave  is  merely  a  machine.     The  use  of^^MJi 
a   machine   tends   to   destroy  it.     But  when   a   modern ^^^ 
steam-engine  is  destroyed  it  is  easily  and  quickly  replaced  ^^q^ 
and  the  total  loss  to  the  capital  of  the  generation  in  ma- 
terial rendered  useless  is  not  great.     Much  of  it  may  be 
used  over  again  to  make  some  new  machine.     But  when 
the  slave  was  used  up  not  merely  was  so  much  capital 
destroyed  but  a  part  of  the  total  productive  force  of  the 
generation  was  permanently  annihilated.     It  could  not 
be  replaced.     The  slave  system  invested  a  large  propor- 
tion of  the  capital  of  the  empire  in  a  relatively  unprofi- 


MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

nd  tended  to  use  up  rapidly  its  productive 
Again,  the  slave  system  tendedto  extinguish  the 
rlasgjr>f_fre,e  laborers  both  in  city  and  country.     In  the 
T^jj^^^jCJties  it  did  this  by  supplying  the  demand  for  labor  of 
all  kinds  and  by  making  labor  odious — never,  perhaps, 
to  such  an  extent  as  m  our  S^outTiefn'^tates,  but  still  in  a 
marked  degree.     In   the  country  it  gave  the  capitalist 
advantage  over  the  small  landowner  in  a  variety  of  ways 
and  made  it  easy  to  drive  him  to  the  wall  and  to  swallow 
up  his  holding.     As  a  result,  although  the  class  of  small 
cultivators  never  entirely  disappeared,  yet  in  some  parts 
of  the  empire  very  few  were  left,  and  vast  estates  culti- 
vated by  slave  labor  were  formed  everywhere,  and  the 
middle  class,  the  solid  resource  of  every  state,  tended  to 
disappear  between  the  very  wealthy  on  one  side  and  the 
slave  class  and  the  city  rabble  on  the  other.     It  must 
be  remembered,  however,  that  the  positive  evil  effects  of 
slavery  were  felt  more  decisively  in  the  earlier  than  in 
the  later  period  of  the  empire.     As  the  empire  drew  to  an 
end,  the  economic  conditions  were  forcing  upon  it,  un- 
consciously but  inevitably,  the  extinction  of  slavery — its 
transformation  into  serfdom,  and,  although  this  transfor- 
mation was  not  completed  in  Roman  days,^  it  had  gone 
far  enough  to  survive  the  German  conquest,  and  far  enough 
to  be  a  decided  gain  both  to  the  state  and  to  the  slave. 
^  I       Another  economic  cause  of  primary  importance  was  the 
JjSt pn^lir  gpmps  and  ^he  free  disfrihution  nf  fgod,  especially 
w»Al>t!he  ),a,tter.     The  public  games  were  a  great  drain  upon 
ythe  resources  of  the  state,  but  the  food  donatives  were 
^yainQr£L.S£iiQiis^evil.     The  distribution  of  wheat  to  the 
^^^  poorer  citizens  at  a  price  below  the  market  price,  which 

Cwas  begun  towards  the  end  of  the  second  century  b.  c. 
as  a  demagogic  measure,  could  not  well  be  stopped. 
One  demagogue  bid  against  another  and^he  empire  was 

*  Indeed,  slavery  did  not  entirely  disappear  from  Europe  during  the 
middk  ages. 


THE   GERMAN   CONQUEST  83 

obliged  to  continue  the  practice.  It  resulted  finally  in 
the  regular  distribution  of  baked  loaves  of  bread,  and 
occasionally  at  least  of  oil,  wine,  meat,  and  clothes,  and 
it  was  extended  gradually  from  the  capital  to  the  larger 
provincial  cities,  and  even  to  the  smaller  towns.  The  ^ 
worst  effect  of  it  was  not  that  it  rnaintained  in  the  to^ns , 
an  unemployed  mol;).  ]^ard  to  be  used  for  anv  good  pur- 
pose  but  easy  to  be_excited  .hy_any-_d©mage^e-ftppeal. 
Two  results  followed ,  which  were  even  more  fatal.  In  *^" 
the  first  place,  the  government,  at  public. expense,  pre- 
sented a  constant  temptation  to  the  middle  class  to  at^an- 
don  the  struggle  for  existence  and  to  sink  into  the  pro- 
letadat— — The  hard-pressed  poor  farmer  who  saw  all  his 
toil  fail  to  improve  his  condition  was  easily  persuaded 
to  escape  from  the  grinding  competition  into  the  town 
and  into  a  class  entirely  unproductive,  or  which  produced 
only  the  least  possible.  But  the  decline  of  production 
was  not  all.  A  continually  increasing  portion  of  the/ 1  \ 
wealth  produced  each  year  by'the  classes  whicKTeHiained 
productive  was^  destroyed  without  adding  anything  to  the 
permanent  capital  of  the  empire.  The  products  "of  the 
province'>  were.  drainpH  jnlo  the  towns  and^^ent  HO  thing 
back — -the  expense  being  met  by  a  taxation  which  rested 
chiefly  on  the  land  itself.  In  normal  conditions  the^rod- 
ucts  of  the  farm  go  into  the  city.  But  while  the  artisan 
is  eating  the  wheat  he  is  making  cloth,  which  goes  back 
to  the  farm  containing  the  total  value  of  the  wheat.  But 
in  Rome  the  economic  result  was  precisely  the  same  as 
if  the  government  had  collected  the  products  of  the  farm 
in  a  heap  and  burned  them.  That  is  to  say,  at  the  mo- 
ment when  the  empire  needed  most  of  all  to  build  up  a 
middle  class  and  to  encourage  the  accumulation  of  re- 
sources, the  state  was,  by  its  own  act,  destroying  the  one , 
and  making  the  other  impossible. 

Another  one  of  those  causes  which  is  commonly  con-  \J  1 
sidered  of  importance  was  the  heavy  and  expensivejtaxa- 


84  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

tion.     It  seems  doubtful,  however,  whether  the  taxation 
oTthe  empire  was  heavier  or,  indeed,  as  heavy  as  that 
of  most  modern  states.     If  there  had  been  general  prosr 
perity  and  the  production  an3~saving  of  wealth  which 
ought  to  h^rVe  existed,  it  is  proba5Ie~tHat  a  IjeavTer  bur- 
den of  taxation  could. have  been. borne  without  serious 
j*-ra^c<?nvefijLenc6i.    It  was  the  disordered  economic  condi- 
■^^uon  which  rendered  the  taxation  injurious,  as  it  imdoubt- 
ji  \  edly  was.     To  this  must  be  added  the  expensive  method 
nSj  x>i   collecdon;___The'  ifidirect   taxes   were   farmed   out — a 
metEodT which  makes  the  collection  a  private  speculation 
^j\^    and  extorts  from  the  people,  much  larger_suins_tJbaBi  the~ 
^government   receives  .'^J'he   land   taxes   were   no   longer 
farmed,  but  the .  responsibility  for  .collecting  them  ap.d 
turmng  them  over  to  the  government  was  placed  upon 
*v*-  the   local   community   of   larger   landowners — a   method. 
'*^  ^fi-v'^ftft^if^ent  itself  readily  to  injustice  and  oppression,  and 
_^  which  made  the  prosperous  and  thrifty  man  pay  the  taxes 
-       of  his  unsuccessful  neighbor. ^ 

y-  I        To  these  more  striking  causes  may  be  added  a  j^onsid- 
»..uuA>erable  group  of  hardly  less  eflfective  ones.     A  debased 
'*^-*"*^rrency   constantly   fluctuating.  irL-value   and   growing 
^  w    moTT'scanty.     A  coiastant_drai^  °^  ^^^  precious  metals 
^^currency  and  capital — into  the  ofienlaT  "states^  to  pay 
or  luxuries  of  dress  and  food,  unproductive  and  soon  de- 
C  stroyed.  ^A  declining  fertility  of  soil^jwhich  with  the  in- 
creasing lack  of  capital  could  not  be  restored,     ^/^-diinin- 
^  -^shing_supply' of  laborers,  felt  severely  in  many  places  by 
/    the"Targe  landowners,  and  which  led  to  the  systematic 
introduction  of  barbarians  by  the  government.     A  still 

'  The  history  of  many  American  cities  shows  that  a  burden  of  taxation, 
probably  higher  than  rested  on  the  Romans  under  the  empire,  cm  be  borne 
without  serious  results — shows,  indeed,  how  high  taxation,  in  some  cases  at 
least,  is  an  unavoidable  result  and  a  sign  of  great  prosperity  and  rapid  growth. 

^  See  in  Taine's  A>icient  Rigime,  book  V,  chap.  II,  an  interesting  accoimt 
of  the  methods  and  results  of  a  similar  system  of  tax  collection  in  France 
in  the  eighteenth  century. 


■u^' 

^°' 


THE   GERMAN   CONQUEST    -  Sg 

-P 

more  dangerous  incorporation  of  barbarians  into  t.hff  arpiy  *•♦ 
from  a  similar  lack  of  men._  Naturjj_  calami ties^_p£sii-  ~<^ 

lences,  and  parfhqna>^^^^jwlnHT_^^  rnigl^t  fall   upon 

anjTstate.  bjif^  wHich  in  the  empire  left  permanent  holes 
in  the  population,  while  an  economically  healthy  state 
would  have  entirely  recovered  such  losses  in  a  generation  * 
or  two.  A  Hp-rhnin£_poHre  and  milit.ary  protection^  seen  Q 
in  such  facts  as  the  often-told  story  of  the  Prankish  pris- 
oners of  the  Emperor  Probus/  or  in  the  occasional  inroad 
of  a  German  tribe  whigh  committed  irreparable  damage 
before  it  could  be  subdued. 

Much  of  this  means  that  the  task  which  Rome  had 
undertaken,  or  which  had  been  in  a  way  forced  upon  her, 
of  bringing  the  world  up  to  her  level  had  proved  in  the 
end  too  great  for  her  civilizing  and  absorbing  power. 
She  had  too_scanty_j:£sm.irrps  in  meg  to  continue  indefi- 
nitely_iifjtu^g  quickly  above  themselves  the  barbarians 
bordering  on  the  empire  or  constantly  streaming  into  it. 
For  it  is  population  which  is  the  absorbing  material.  It 
has  been  said  that  ifJRome  ^coaliljiaye  conquered  and  • 
civili7^d_the  Germans  as  shehad  the  Gauls,  the  empire 
would  never  have  fallen.  That  is  true,  but  that  is  ex- 
actly wIiatRome  could  not  do,  and  found  she  could  not 
even  in  the  first  Christian  century.  At  thc-KJiine  and  the 
DaniiliejRome  reached  not  merely  fhe.  limits  of  her  geo- 
gr^hicd  empire  but  ^^  thf  f^p'''"  of"  her  rivilizn.tion. 
The  Germans  gained  jmmensely  from  their  contact  with 
Rome,  but  with  their  advent  the  current  beganj-o  flow 
backward.  They  rose  in^iviUzation  far  more  quickly 
than  they  otherwise  could  have  done,  but  in  the  process 
the  civiHzing  force  was  reduced  and  greatly  diluted,  and 
th£_civilization  of  the  world  was  lowered. 

Enough  has  beeiTsaid  t6"^ow  the  direction  in  which 

*  Transported  by  the  emperor  to  the  region  of  the  Black  Sea,  they  seized 
upon  some  ships  and  made  their  way  through  the  length  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean, attacking  cities,  and  apparently  meeting  little  resistance;  finally  they 
Dassed  out  into  the  Atlantic  and  reached  their  home  in  the  Rhine  valley. 


86  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  causes  of  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  are  to  be 
sought,  and  to  show  that  long  study  and  a  full  account 
are  necessary  to  any  adequate  presentation  of  them. 
They  lay  deep,  at  the  very  foundation  of  society,  as  is 
evident  from  the  fact  that  in  periods  of  tranquillity  and 
apparent  strength,  as  under  the  good  emperors  in  the 
second  century,  or  in  the  fourth  century  from  Constan- 
tine  to  the  breaking  of  the  Danube  frontier,  there  was  no 
recovery,  no  trustworthy  return  of  strength,  rather  when, 
at  the  close  of  such  a  period,  the  real  test  came,  the 
empire  was  found  to  be  weaker  than  before. 

T  have  used  throughout  the  expression  "fall  of  Rome" 
as  a  convenient  phrase.  But  if  the  nature  of  the  disease 
from  which  the  empire  suffered  has  been  correctly  indi- 
cated, the  term  is  clearly  an  incorrect  one.  Rome  did 
not  fall.  She  was  overthrown.  Her  strength  was  ex- 
hausted, but  it  wQg  tli£_attack  whichjzaS-ia.tah  But  for 
-that  she  could  undoubtedly  have  recovered.  The  word 
overthrown,  in  turn,  conveys  too  strong  an  impression. 
The  empire  was  at  the  moment  empjty  ^mcl  the  Germans 
entered  in  and  took  possession. 

It  is,  indeed,  a  serious  mistake  to  regard  this  revolu- 
tion exclusively  from  the  standpoint  of  a  "faL,"  as  if  it 
were  merely  the  destruction  of  the  ancient  civilization. 
It  was  something  far  more  than  that.*     It  was  the  neces- 

^  The  continuance  of  the  empire  in  the  East  through  these  early  centuries 
of  the  middle  ages,  maintaining  a  degree  of  civilization  superior  to  any- 
thing in  the  contemf>orary  West,  must  not  be  forgotten.  It  acted  for  long 
generations  as  a  barrier  against  invasions  from  the  farther  East,  and  upon 
certain  individual  features  of  civilization',  especially  upon  art,  it  was  a 
direct  source  of  beneficent  influence.  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison,  in  the  Rede 
lecture  of  Cambridge  University  for  1900,  included  in  revised  form  in  his 
Among  My  Books  (191 2),  has  stated  the  case  for  the  "Empire  of  New 
Rome"  as  strongly  as  the  facts  will  permit.  The  general  impression  which 
the  lecture  makes  concerning  the  influence  of  Byzantine  civilization  upon 
the  West,  as  distinguished  from  the  statement  of  specific  facts,  is,  indeed, 
something  of  an  exaggeration.  There  are  few  cases  in  which  the  Eastern 
Empire  can  be  shown  to  have  done  more  than  to  preserve  and  transmit. 


THE   GERMAN   CONQUEST  87 

sary  reorganization  and  rearrangement  preparatory  to  a 
new  and  higher  civilization.  From  this  point  of  view  the 
period  of  the  fall  of  Rome  was  an  age  of  progress.  It 
was  not  merely  an  age  of  "fall,"  hut  also  of  r.onqnesj, 
and  tliis  fact,  along  with  the  estabhshment  of  Christian- 
ity,  is  the  vitallv  important  fact  of  these  centuries.  But 
it  is  so  because  it  was  something  more  than  a  mere  con- 
quest. The  Germans  broi'ght  with  them  racp  rharar- 
terisiics  and  ideas  and_iiistitiitiQns  which,  though  they 
were  those  of  a  primitive  people,  were  noble  and  well 
developed,  able  to  enter  into  a  competition  with  those  of 
a  higher  civihzation  on  something  like  equal  terms.  Add 
the  fact  that  the  Teutonic  race  became  the  ruling  race  of 
Christendom,  and  we  can  understand  how  it  came  to  be 
one  of  the  determining  sources  of  our  civilization  and  how 
the  period  of  the  "fall  of  Rome"  is  one  of  the  great  con- 
structive ages  of  history. 


\ 


CHAPTER   V 

WHAT    THE    GERMANS    ADDED 

In  passing  to  the  special  consideration  of  the  additions 
which  the  Germans  made  to  the  ancient  civilization,  it  is 
necessary  to  give  the  first  place  to  what  was  probably 
their  most  valuable  contribution,  the  Germans  them- 
selves This  impHes  not  merely  that  the  /(^oyernments 
which  they  set  up  in  the  place  of  the  Roman  were,  in 
very  many  cases,  an  improvement  upon  the  practical  an- 
archy which  passed  under  the  name  of  the  empire,  and 
a  welcome  relief  to  the  provincials,  as  they  were,  but  also 
that  there  was  a  more  permanent  influence  introduced  in 
the  tact  that  they  brought  in  al^voung,  vigorous,  and 
healthy  race  to  form  a  considerable  element  in  the  popu- 
lation of  every  European  state.  It  is  possible  that  in 
some  parts  of  the  empire  the  number  of  new  settlers  was 
not  large,  and  yet  it  has  been  said  of  each  of  the  Latin- 
speaking  countries  that  it  contains  districts  where  the 
German  physical  characteristics — Hght  hair  and  blue,  eyes 
— still  predominate  among  the  inhabitants  and  indicate 
a  large  Teutonic  immigration.  The  amount  of  German 
blood  which  went  to  form  the  modern  nations  must  have 
been  considerable,  for  we  need  to  add  to  the  invading 
forces  the  large  numbers  settled  in  the  empire  earlier  as 
slaves  jLTid  ■^aldipjq  The  German  was,  to  be  sure,  a 
saVage,  and  it  may  be  that  his  bringing  in  brought  in  also 
greater  ignorance  and  decline  and  "darkness''  than_would 
otherwise  have  been;  but  in  the  existing  conditions  this 
was  a  necessity,  and  the  results  justify  the  cost.     Pos- 

8S 


WHAT   THE    GERMANS    ADDED  89 

sibly,  as  has  been  intimated,  the  Roman  world  might 
have  recovered  its  strength  and  entered  upon  a  new  age 
of  production  without  their  aid.  But  had  it  done  so, 
even  more  successfully  than  seems  at  all  probable,  the 
product  would  have  lacked  the  qualities  added  by  the 
Germans.  The  settlement  of  the  Teutonic  tribes  was 
not  merely  the  introduction  of  a  new  set  of  ideas  and 
institutions  to  combine  with  the  old,  it  was  also  the  in- 
troduction of  fresh  blood  and  vouthful  mind,  the  muscle 
and  the  brains  which  were  in  the  future  to  do  the  larger 
share  of  the  world's  work.  .-    • 

Besides  the  addition  of  themselves  they  brought  withik,^ 
them,  as  a  decided  characteristic  of  the  race,  a  very  high  C^ 
idea  of  personal  independence,  of  the  value  and  impor-      ^ 
tance  of  the  individual  man  as  compared  with  the  state. 
This  can  be  seen  in  the  proud  spirit  or~the~mdividual 
warrior— a  characteristic  of  many  barbarian   races.     It 
can  be  seen  still  more  clearly  in  another  characteristic  of 
barbarian  races  in  those  crude  systems  of  criminal  jus- 
tice out  of  which  these  tribes  were  just  emerging  in  the 
migration  period.     They  exhibit  the  injured  man  appar- 
ently never   thinking  that   the  public  authority  is   the 
proper  power  to  punish  the  wrong-doer,  but  taking  the 
punishment  into  his  own  hands  as  the  only  natural  resort 
in  such  a  case.     It  can  be  seen  again  in  the  fact  that 
when  the  state  does  begin  to  assume  the  right  to  punish 
crime,  it  cannot  venture  to  inflict  personal  chastisement, 
or  to  interfere  with  the  liberty  of  the  freeman.     It  must 
limit  itself  to  imposing  money  fines,  part  of  which  goes 
to  the  injured  party  as  indicative  of  his  rights  in  the  case,  s___ 
anc^  it  can  be  seen  finally  in  the  democratic  cast  of  all     X 
their  earliest  governments.     Thpjijjjf  pf  tVia  whHf  piibhiT        ' 
life,  is  the  individual  man,  notnie  stafe^ 

We  have  seen  in  the  third  chapteFirow  tne  early  Chris- 
tianity taught  a  closely  related  idea;  how  it  proclaimed 
certain  rights  and  interests  of  the  individual  to  be  far 


90  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

higher  and  more  important  than  any  duties  he  could  owe 
the  state.  How  much  the  one  set  of  these  ideas  reinforced 
the  other  it  is  impossible  to  say.  We  can  trace  their  con- 
tmued  influence  only  by  way  of  inference.  Somewhere 
between  the  ancient  days  and  the  present  the  idea  of  the 
relation  of  the  individual  to  the  state  has  be£ii-trans- 
formed.  In  the  ancient  time  the  state  was  an  end  in  and 
for  itself  far  more  than  it  has  ever  been  in  the  modern. 
To  the  Greek  or  the  Roman  the  state  was  evervthing,  the 
individual  comparatively  nothing.  His  domestic  and  re- 
ligious life,  as  well  as  his  political,  found  their  ultimate 
object  in  the  state.  Now,  the  state  is  regarded  as  a 
means  rather  than  an  end.  Its  ^object  is  thought  to  be 
to  secure  for  the  individual  the  fullest  and  freest  develop- 
ment  possible  in  a  community  life,  and  the  state  which 
secures  this  with  the  least  governing  and  the  least  ma- 
chinery is  held  to  be  the  best  state.  Whether  this  view 
of  the  state  is  to  be  a  permanent  one  or  not,  even  if,  as 
some  vaguely  expect,  the  modern  state  should  be  destined 
to  give  way  in  the  end  to  some  more  highly  organized 
form  of  common  action  than  history  has  yet  known,  still 
the  change  which  put  the  modern  in  the  place  of  the 
ancient  idea  would  remain  one  of  the  most  important 
changes  in  the  history  of  civilization,  and  the  question 
of  the  reasons  for  it  one  of  the  most  interesting  ques- 
.  tions.  The  natural  influenc£„Qf_Oirlstia,n  _ leachimL-^and 
/\j[lerman  spirit  working  together  would  seem  to  be  to 
lead  to  such  a  transformation.  That  they  did  actually 
do  so  is  far  easier  to  assert  than  to  prove.  Probably  the 
most  that  can  be  said  confidently  is  this:  The  idea  of 
the  independence  and  supreme  worth  of  the  individual, 
so  strongly  felt  and  expressed  in  the  early  medieval  cen- 
turies passes  almost  wholly  out  of  the  consciousness  of 
the  later  middle  ages  except  partially  upon  the  pohtical 
side  where  a  closely  related  idea — which  grew,  in  part, 
it  seems  likely,  out  of  this  earlier  one — finds  expression 


WHAT   THE    GERMANS   ADDED  9I 

i n  fgudalism .  But,  in  general,  the  individual  ceases  to  be 
the  primary  element  of  society  and  is  absorbed,  not  now 
in'~the  state~but  in  the  corporationTthe  guild,  the  com- 
mune, the  order,  the  hierarchy.  The  revival  of  the  older 
idea  in  modern  times  is  to  be' traced  with  certainty  only 
to  two  sources.  One  is  that  revolution  of  the  whole 
intellectual  standpoint  of  the  middle  ages  which  was 
wrought  by  the  Renaissance  and  the  Reformation,  recov- 
ering Christian  as  well  as  classical  ideas  which  had  long 
been  lost,  emphasizing  again  the  supreme  worth  of  the 
individual  and  establishing  the  right  of  private  judg- 
ment.    The   other   ]<;   the   gradual   development   of   the 

primiti'vp    gprman    ipgl-i'^iitiAng    {y^^q    modfr"    ff^^    gOY^^"^- 

ments.  These  two  together  form  most  important  sources 
of  the  renewal  of  the  democratic  spirit  which  is  so  char- 
acteristic of  our  age,  and,  with  that,  of  the  emphasis 
which  we  again  lay  on  the  individual  man  and  his  rights.^ 


Of  the  new  elements  introduced  by  the  Germans, 
whose  continued  life  and  influence  we  can  most  clearly 
trace  to  our  own  time,  the  most  important  were  political 

and  institutional. . 

'he  Germans  were  passing  at  the  time  of  their  con- 


Z7 


it  this  transformation  was  aided  also  by  economic  causes,  such,  for 
example,  as  the  influence  of  the  colonies  upon  the  old  world,  is  no  doubt 
true,  but  it  is  not  possible  to  do  more  at  present  than  to  point  out  the*" 
probability.  Many  of  the  demands  of  the  workman  of  to-day  are  mani- 
festly quite  as  much  due  to  the  spread  of  democratic  ideas  as  to  any  direct 
economic  cause. 

The  text  refers,  of  course,  to  the  rights  of  the  individual  as  expressed  in 
the  practical  and  institutional  life  of  the  community  rather  than  in  theo- 
retical and  speculative  treatises.  The  emphatic  and  repeated  statement  of 
the  rights  of  the  individual,  as  against  the  ruler,  by  the  Jesuits  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  for  instance,  was  of  no  value  in  the  historical  development  of 
liberty.  Undoubtedly  the  political  contrivances  by  which  we  secure  for 
the  individual  the  greatest  possible  freedom  under  an  efficient  government 
are,  in  the  main,  the  outgrowth  of  the  German  institutions  which  are  con- 
sidered in  the  following  paragraphs.  But  the  question  is:  What  was  the 
original  source  and  whence  the  constant  reinforcement  of  the  spirit  which 
defended  and  developed  these  primitive  institutions? 


92  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

tact  with  the  Romans  through  a  stage  of  political  devel- 
opment through  which  the  classical  nations  had  passed 
long  before.  The  pohtical  arrangements  of  the  primitive 
Germans  of  Tacitus  were  in  many  ways  very  closely  like 
those  of_the  primitive  Greeks  of  Homer.  But  in  the 
case  of  the  Germans  the  race  possessed  so  solid  and  con- 

•  servative  a  political  character,  and  these  primitive  insti- 
tutidns  had  received^ su^  definiteness  of  form  that  they 

V/were  able  to  survive  for  centuries  the  danger  of  absorp- 
tion and  annihilation  which  faced  them  in  the  more 
highly  developed  Roman  institutions,  and,  through  some 
channels  at  least,  permanently  to  influence  the  pubHc  hfe 
of  the  world.  And  while  the  classical  nations,  starting 
from  the  same  beginning,  failed  to  construct  successful 
and  permanent  free  governments,  but  ended  in  a  uni- 
versal despotism  in  which  such  of  the  forms  of  free  gov- 
ernment as  survived  had  lost  all  meaning,  in  the  history 
of  th^-JTeiitonkL-oations,  on  the  contrary,  the  experience 
of  absolute  monarchy,  through  which  the  germs  of  liberty 
were  destined  to  pass,  3id  not  destrov  their  life-or  more 
than  temporarily  check  their  growth. 

It  may  be  said  in  general  tnat  the  Germans  brought 
in  some  of  the  more  important  of  the  elements  out  of 
which  the  intervening  centuriesj^lyave  developed^modern 
^(kfree  constitutional  government^.  But  these  elemenTs  are 
to  be  recogmzed  as  clearly  democratic  much  more  plainly 
in  the  Germany  of  Tacitus  than  in  the  states  which  were 
established  on  Roman  soil.  It  is  e\'ident  that  the  con- 
quest exposed  them  to  a  double  danger.  In  the  first 
/,  place,  in  those  countries  where  the  Germans  settled  down 
in  the  midst  of  a  Roman  population  they  were_ex20sed 
to  the  pvg|rr>j}lp  nf  t^p  Roman  government  and  to  the  in- 
fln^n^^  ftf  ^^'^  T?r>man  gfafp  machincrv.  important  parts  of 
which  were  often  allowed  to  continue  in  operation  at  least 
for  a  time,  both  these  tending  to  impress  on  the  barbarian 

^ruler  the  value  of  centralization  and  absolutism.    Th^e 


WHAT   THE    GERMANS   ADDED  93 

importance  of  this  influence  has  been  disputed  by  some 
scholars,  but  impartial  investigation  leaves  no  doubt  that^ 
dilf  to  t^'f'T^'^maP   py^mplp  there  was  a   strong  tendenry 
to  increase  the  power  of  the^ing  at  the  expense  of  the 
peopfeS  In:^RFIsecond  placCj,  the  influence^ jof .  the  con-   V» 
quest  itself  was  in  the  same...dli£CiiQP.     It  exposed  the 
tribe  to  greater  dangers  than  it  had  ever  before  experi- 
enced,  it  planted_itinjUifi_ midst  of_a  conquered  popula- ^Xt, 
tion  more  numerous  than  itself,  it  demanded  that  the'^t^*^ 
whole  power  of  the  state  should  be  wielded  by  a  single  <^ 
will  and  to  a  single  purpose.     The  tendenc}^  of  dangerous    /2!^ 
crises  in  the  Ijfe^^en  of  the  freest  nation  is  tQBfards  cen- ~^    , 
tralizatiop.     This  result  is  seen  ever3rwhere  in  these  new       «^^ 
states,  with  especial  clearness  in  the  case  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,    where    the    first-mentioned    cause — the    Roman 
example — had  no  opportunity  to  work.     The  fact  must 
therefore  be  distinctly  recognized  that  the  first  develop- 
ment which    ^hese   German  institutions  underwent  was 
awav  from  libertv  and  towards  absolutism. 

Of  these  original  institutions  three  are  of  especial  im- 
portance__aiidTn|eresOh  their  bearing  upon  later  times, 
and  these  are  selected  for  specific  notice.  / 

First,  the  public  assembfies^  The  early  Germans  had^^^^^ 
assemblies  of  two  grades.  ^JThe  highest  in  grade  was  tnc  c^ 
assembly  ofall  the_freemen  of  tiig_.tEib%  according  to 
Tacitus,  which  we  may  call  the  tribal  or  national  assembly. 
This  possessed  distinct  legislative  rights,  like  a  market 
democracy,  at  least  so  much  as  a  right  of  decision  for  or 
against  important  measures  submitted  to  it  by  a  smaller 
council  of  elders  or  chiefs.  In  it  were  elected  the  kings, 
when  necessary,  and  the  chiefs  of  the  smaller  disCffets, 
and  iFalso  acte^  on  occasion  as  a  judicial  tribunal  for  tTie 
hearing  aad  decision  of  such  cases  as  mightbebroughl 
before  j^t.  It  would  seem  as  if  this  assembly  would  tur- 
nish  a  most  promising  beginning,  which  ought  to  grow 
into  a  free  a^ndnational  system  of  legislation.     As  a  matter 


94  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

of  fact  it  did  not.  The  national  assembly  was  one  of  the 
earliest  victims  of  the  centralizing  tendency,  and  every- 
where sank  into  a  mere  form  or  entirely  disappeared. 
This  was  as  true  of  England  as  of  any  continental  state, 
and  though  it  is  probable  that  the  smaller  assembly  of 
chiefs,  the  concilium  principum,  which  accompanied  the 
national  assembly,  remained  through  the  successive 
changes  of  government  and  of  its  own  composition  until 
it  grew  into  the  House  of  Lords,  even  this  is  not  per- 
fectly certain.  It  is,  however,  for  our  present  purpose, 
a  matter  of  no  importance  whether  it  did  or  not,  for, 
whatever  its  origin,  the  assembly  of  notables  under  the 
Norman  and  early  Angevin  kings  was  no  longer  in  any 
sense  a  public  assembly,  nor  did  it  have  in  any  true 
sense  a  representative  character  or  independent  legisla- 
tive power. 

The  origin  of  the  modern  representative  system  can- 
not be  determined  with  any  certainty,  but  for  any  pos- 
sible early  source  we  must  turn  to  the  assemblies  of  the 
y     second  grade  in  the  original  German  states.  _  In  these  the 
/^    f  reemerr-t>f  -  the  smatfer  locgjity-^the  hundred  or  canton 
JL.«»<'^t»*^anie  together  in  a  public  meeting  which  possessed,  no 
I^^JjLdoubt,  legislative  power  over  matters  purely  local,  but 
-^^^ywhose  most  important  function  seems  to  have  been  ju- 
.-^icial— a  locaJLcoyxt,  presided  over  by  a  chief,  who  an- 
I  pounced  the  verdict,  which,  however,  derived  its  validity 
[/from  the  decision  of  the  assembly,  or,  in  later  times,  of 
a  number  of  their  body  appointed  to  act  for  the  whole. 
These  IocrI  rour4>s,  probably,  as  has  been  suggested,^  be- 
cause of  the  comparatively  restricted  character  of  the 
powers  which  they  possessed,  were  destined   to  a  long 
life.     On  the  Continent  they  lasted  until  the  very  end  of 
the  middle  ages,  when  they  were  generally  overthrown 
bytheTntr^^ction  of  the  Roman  law,  too  highly  scien- 
tific for  their  simple  methods.     In  England  they  lasted 

*  Stubbs,  Constitutional  History  of  England,  vol.  I,  p.  92. 


WHAT   THE   GERMANS   ADDED  95 

until  they  furnished  the  model,  and  possibly  the  sugges- 
tion, for  a  far  more  important  institution — the  House  of 
Commons.  How  many  grades  of  these  local  courts  theFe 
wereon  the  continent  below  the  national  assembly  is  a 
matter  of  dispute.  In  England  there  was  in  the  later 
days  of  the  Saxon  state  a  series  of  three.  The  lowest 
was  the  township  assembly,  concerned  only  with  matters 
of  very  slight  importance  and  surviving  still  in  the  En- 
glish vestry  meeting  and  the  New  England  town  meeting.^ 
Above  this  was  the  hundred's  court  into  which  entered, 
at  least  in  early  Norman  times,  a  distinctly  representative  i^ 
element,  the  assembly  containing,  together  with  other^rti^ 
men,  four  representatives  sent  from  certain  townships.  *^"*'2^ 
Then,  third,  the  tribal  assembly  of  the  original  little  set-  (^l 
tlement,  or  the  small  Jdngdom— of— the— earlyLXpnquest,  '^iO 
seems  to  have^survived  when  this  kingdom  was  swallowed  '^.^j^ 
up  jn  a  larger  one,  and  to  have  originated  a  new  grade  in 
the  hierarchy  of  assemblies,  the  county  assemblyor  shire 
court.  At  any  rate,  whatever  may  have  been  its  origm, 
and  whatever  may  be  the  final  decision  of  the  vigorously 
disputed  question,  whether  in  the  Frankish  state  there 
were  any  assemblies  or  courts  for  the  counties  distinct 
from  the  courts  of  the  hundreds,  it  is  certain  that  courts 
of  this  grade  came  into  existence  in  England  and  were 
of  the  utmost  importance  there.  In  them,  too,  the  rep- 
resentative principle  was  expressed,  townships  of  the  shire 
being  represented,  as  in  the  hundred's  court,  by  four 
chosen  representatives.  These  courts,  also,  passed  essen- 
tially unchanged  through  the  English  feudal  and  abso- 
lutist period,  at  least  into  the  second  half  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,   maintaining   local   self-government   and 

1  There  may  be  a  question  as  to  how  strongly  this  connection  between 
the  New  England  town  meeting  and  the  local  assembly  of  the  primitive 
Germans  should  be  asserted,  because  of  the  lack  of  direct  evidence  for  some 
of  the  intermediate  links.  But  while  this  want  of  evidence,  in  exact  docu- 
mentary shape,  must  be  admitted,  it  is  certainly  hypercriticism  to  refuse, 
in  consequence,  to  admit  the  overwhelming  probability  of  such  a  connection. 


0    Jcl.wAlAA-^^EDI^AL^CIVILIZ^Ioff'^^^ 

preserving  more  of  the  primitive  freedom  than  survived 
elsewhere.  It  is  possible  at  a  later  time  that  the  repre- 
sentative principle  originating  in  them^was  transferred  to 
tlie  national  legislature,  creating  our  modern  national 
representative  system — the  most  important  single  con- 
tribution to  the  machinery  of  government  made  in  his- 
toric times,  with  the  possible  exception  of  federal  govern- 
ment. 

The  first  of  the  special  political  elements  brought  in 
by  the  Germans  is,  then,  the  public,  assembly,  the  orig- 
inal germ  from  which  our  modern  free  legislatures  may 
have  grown. 

The  second  one  of  these  special  elements  to  be  noticed 
is  the  elective  monarchy.  The  frpp;mpri^f  all  the^early  Ger- 
man tribes  clearly  possessed,  or  had  at  one  time  possessed, 
the  jiight  of  electing  tlieir  king.  In  all  these  tribes,  how- 
ever, the  tendency  was  justas  cTearly  towards  the  estabhsh- 
ment  of  hereditary  succession.  It  depended  entirely  upon 
the  special  circumstances  of  each  case  whether  the  forms 
of  an  election,  preserved  everywhere  for  a  considerable 
time,  sank  into  mere  forms  without  meaning,  and  finally 
out  of  sight,  or  whether  they  retained  Hfe  and  meaning 
and  became  recognized  as  constitutional.  ^   ^ 

In  Germany  an  accidental  circumstance — the  fact  that 
no  dynasty  lasted  for  more  than  three  or  four  generations 
— kept  alive  the  principle  of  election  until  it  resulted  in  a 
real  elective  monarchy;  but,  owing  to  another  circum- 
stance— the  loss  on  the  part  of  the  royal  power  itself  of 
all  control  over  the  state — this  fact  had  no  valuable  re- 
sults for  Hberty.  In  France  an  accidental  circumstance 
again— the  fact  that  for  more  than  three  hundred  years 
after  the  election  of  the  Capetian  family  to  the  throne, 
it  never  lacked  a  direct  male  heir,  had  the  opposite  result, 
and  the  principle  of  election  passed  entirely  out  of  sight 
and  the  monarchy  became  strictly  hereditary.  In  En- 
gland the  monarchy  also  became,  in  time,  strictly  heredi- 


WHAT   THE    GERMANS    ADDED  97 

tary,  and  the  original  right  of  election  disappeared.  But 
the  principle  did  not  pass  entirely  out  of  remembrance, 
and  later,  though  with  no  apparent  connection  with  the 
earlier  principle,  a  series  of  doubtful  successions  and  of 
depositions  created  a  new  elective  right,  or  what  is  far 
more  important,  its  corollary,  the  right  of  the  people  to 
depose  an  unsatisfactory  king  and  put  another  in  his 
place.  An  idea  of  this  kind,  but  plainly  feudal  in  origin, 
seems  to  have  been  recognized  by  some,  at  least  in  the 
contest  for  the  crown  between  Stephen  and  Matilda,  to- 
wards the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century;  less  consciously 
in  the  deposition  of  Edward  II  in  1327;  more  clearly  in 
the  case  of  Richard  II  in  1399,  and  at  the  end  of  the 
Yorkist  line  in  1485,  in  both  these  cases  the  rightful  heirs 
being  set  aside  in  favor  of  others.  It  came  to  the  fullest 
consciousness  and  the  clearest  expression  in  the  Revolu- 
tion of  1688,  and  in  the  accession  of  the  House  of  Han- 
over in  171 5.  These  cases  established  definitely  in  the 
British  Constitution  the  principle  that  the  sovereign  ob- 
tains his  right  to  rule  from  the  consent  of  the  people, 
and  this  has  been  distinctly  recognized  by  the  princes  of 
the  House  of  Hanover.  It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  this 
is  a  vitally  important  principle  if  a  monarchy  is  to  be 
transformed  into  what  is  virtually  a  republican  govern- 
ment. Without  the  clear  recognition  of  this  principle, 
explicitly  or  implicitly,  by  the  reigning  sovereign,  it  would 
be  impossible  to  continue  a  historic  line  of  kings  at  the 
head  of  a  republic,  the  object  which  is  sought,  and  more 
or  less  completely  secured,  by  all  modern  constitutional 
monarchies.^ 

•  That  this  principle  has  no  immediate  bearing  on  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  is  evident.  But  if  we  turn  back  to  1776  it  may  be  cleariy 
seen  that  it  was  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  important  principles  which 
justified  the  Revolution.  The  Declaration  of  Independence,  after  enu- 
merating the  acts  of  tyranny  on  the  part  of  the  king,  says:  "  A  Prince  whose 
character  is  thus  marked  by  every  act  which  may  define  a  Tyrant,  is  unfit 
to  be  the  ruler  of  a  free  People."     This  sentence  states  explicitly  the  fact 


98  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

"2.       The  third  element  of  free  government  originating  with 
the  Germans  wns  nn  infipp^ndpnt  or  self  dpvpl oping  syn 
tern  oiJa»z:,-n.irhe  law  systems  of  all  the  Germans  at  the 
time  of  the  invasion  were  very  crude,  both  in  the  law  itself 
and  in  the  method  of  its  enforcement,  but  they  were  all 
characterized  ahke  by  this  fact  that  the  law  was  ascer- 
fainpd^  HefinpH    and  <iprli\Led  by  the  courts,  or,  in  other 
words,  sirice  the  courts  were  piiMJf;  asg^-^^^^'^^gj  by  the 
^    people  themselves.     It  follows  necessarily  from  this  that 
the  courts,  by  establishing  precedents,  by  declaring  cus- 
toms which  had  grown  up  in  the  community  to  have  the 
force  of  law,  and  by  applying  the  common  judgment  and 
^H^sense  of  justice  of  the  people  to  new  cases,  as  they  arose, 
^    ^vere  constantly  enlarging  the  body  of  the  law  andbuild- 
•  I  ing  upJ5y~a  natural  process  of  growth  a  great  body  of 
V\customary  or  common  law — unwritten  law^     Tbe  inip"or- 
tance  of  this  practice  as  an  element  of  Hberty  does  not 
consist  in  the  law  itself  which  is  created  in  this  way. 
That  is  apt  to  be  unscientific  and  experimental.     It  cQn- 
sists  in_ lh£^ fact-that^the-JlaAv^-is.  noL impocod  i*pon  the 
people^by  a  power  outside  itself,  and  declared  and  en- 
forced by  a  series  of  irresponsible  agents,  but  that  the 
people"  themselves  make  it  and  also  interpret,-  modify, 
aii3~enforca,it.     This  practice  continued  in  vigorous  hfe 

that  a  free  people  may  have  a  king,  and  with  equal  clearness  the  principle 
that  if  he  is  unfit  he  may  be  set  aside.  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that,  in  that 
part  of  the  Declaration  which  is  really  Anglo-Saxon  in  origin  and  spirit,  this 
is  the  only  statement  made  of  any  principle  which  justifies  the  Revolution, 
the  body  of  the  Declaration  consists  of  evidence  to  prove  the  unfitness 
asserted. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  this  special  Anglo-Saxon  principle  is  only  a  form 
of  the  broader  right  of  revolution.  The  historical  line  sketched  above 
merely  represents  the  channel  through  which  the  race  has  been  brought  to 
a  practical  consciousness  of  the  broader  principle.  Its  peculiar  historical 
significance,  however,  does  not  lie  in  that  fact,  since  the  race  must  inevi- 
tably have  become  conscious,  as  all  races  have,  of  the  right  of  revolution. 
It  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  has  led  to  the  formation  of  a  constitutional  theory 
in  monarchical  states,  which  if  cordially  accepted  by  the  sovereign,  tends  to 
do  away  with  the  necessity  of  revolution. 


WH.\T   THE   GERMANS   ADDED  99 

in  the  continental  states  much  longer  than  any  other  of 
the  specific  institutions  mentioned,  and,  together  with  the 
popular  courts  which  gave  it  expression,  preserved  some 
remains  of  freedom  long  after  it  had  entirely  disappeared 
from  every  other  part  of  the  state.  In  the  last  part  of 
the  middle  ages  the  adoption  of  the  Roman  law,  and  the 
system  of  scientific  jurisprudence  which  that  law  fostered, 
practically  destroyed  on  the  Continent  these  self-devel- 
oping bodies  of  law.^  When  the  control  of  the  courts 
passed  into  the  hands  of  men  trained  to  regard  the  Roman 
law  as  their  only  model,  and  when  the  Roman-law  maxim, 
Quod  principi  placuit  legis  hahet  vigorem  was  adopted  by 
the  newly  formed  nations,  and  became  a  native  maxim, 
as  in  the  French,  Si  veui  le  rot,  si  veut  la  loi,  then  the 
control  of  the  people  over  the  law  had  ceased,  and  all 
law-making  power  had  been  centred  in  the  sovereign. 
In  England  this  revolution  never  took  place.  The  com- 
mon law  has  continued  to  develop  in  the  same  natural 
way,  though  by  a  somewhat  different  process,  through 
every  generation  of  its  history,  and,  however  seriously 
at  any  point  the  native  principles  may  have  been  modi- 
fied by  the  introduction  of  foreign  ideas  and  doctrines  of 
law,  such  modification  has  never  been  of  a  character  to 
check  for  a  moment  the  natural  growth  of  the  common 
law,  or  to  deprive  it  of  its  independence  of  the  executive 
and  legislative  branches  of  government,  which  are  the 

'  The  Roman  law  did  not  everywhere  take  the  place  of  the  customary 
law  as  the  sole  law  of  the  community.  In  many  places  the  customary  law 
remained  as  the  prevailing  local  law.  But  it  ceased  to  grow.  The  prin- 
ciple was  generally  admitted  that  in  new  cases  for  which  the  customary 
law  did  not  provide,  recourse  should  be  had  to  the  Roman  law,  and  the 
customary  law  itself  was  reduced  to  written  and  more  scientific  shape  under 
the  influence  of  the  lawyers.  Nor  should  it  be  understood  that  the  Ger- 
manic law  made  no  permanent  contributions  to  the  details  of  the  law  in 
those  places  where  it  was  on  the  whole  supplanted  by  the  Roman  law.  A 
specific  history  of  law  would  show  that  these  contributions  were  numerous 
and  important  even  in  directions  where  the  Roman  law  was  very  highly 
developed. 


lOO  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

vitally  important  points.^  It  is  at  this  moment,  in  every 
quarter  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  world,  and  in  the  midst  of  a 
thousand  new  conditions  of  social  and  geographical  en- 
vironment, as  vigorous  and  creative  a  part  of  the  nation's 
life  as  ever  in  the  past,  and  one  of  the  most  important 
processes  of  our  free  self-government. ^  In  the  United 
States  the  existence  of  a  written  constitution,  as  funda- 
mental law,  setting  bounds  to  the  action  of  the  national 
legislature,  has  led  to  a  most  important  and  valuable 
extension  of  this  principle  in  the  power  which  the  courts 
have  assumed,  without  expressed  sanction,  to  declare  a 
law  regularly  passed  by  the  national  legislature  uncon- 
stitutional and  therefore  null  and  void.  This  practice 
will  also  be  adopted  in  some  form,  almost  of  necessity, 
by  British  courts  in  dealing  with  acts  passed  by  an  Irish 
Parliament  if  one  should  be  established  by  an  imperial 
statute  limiting  its  legislative  powers. 

These  three  institutions,  though  by  no  means  covering 
every  detail  which  might  be  mentioned,  are  the  most 
important  political  elements  brought  into  modern  civi- 

^That  the  common  law  has  been  radically  revolutionized  by  statute  on 
some  subjects  in  very  recent  times,  as,  for  example,  in  real-estate  law,  is 
not  an  evidence  of  the  decline  of  this  self-developing  power.  It  is  rather 
due  to  the  rapid  and  revolutionary  change  in  society  itself,  which  demands 
equally  rapid  and  revolutionary  change  in  the  law  to  accompany  it.  The 
statutes  themselves  are  subjected  at  once  to  the  ordinary  process  of  com- 
mon-law development  in  the  interpretation  and  application  of  them  made 
by  the  courts. 

^  It  is  the  habit  of  German  students  of  law  to  say  hard  things  of  the 
English  common  law.  They  call  it  confused  and  unscientific  and  full  of 
repetitions  and  contradictory.  And  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  these 
things  are  to  some  extent  true.  But  there  is  no  doubt  that  precisely  the 
same  things  could  have  been  said  with  equal  justice  of  the  Roman  law  dur- 
ing the  ages  of  its  growth,  and  it  is  well  to  remember  that,  as  the  Roman 
law  took  on  a  more  scientific  form,  and  was  reduced  to  an  organized  system, 
its  life  and  power  of  growth  ceased.  History  does  not  show  any  necessary 
connection  between  these  two  events;  but  certainly,  if  the  formation  of  a 
scientific  system  on  the  basis  of  the  English  common  law  is  to  mean  that  our 
law  and  institution-making  power  is  past,  then  every  Anglo-Saxon  may 
most  heartily  pray  that  our  law  may  long  remain  unscientific. 


WHAT    THE    GERMANS   ADDED  lOI 

lization  by  the  German  race.  The  great  system  of  free 
self-government  which  the  Anglo-Saxons  have  built  upon 
this  foundation  is  making  the  conquest  of  the  world. 
After  much  experimenting  in  other  directions  under  the 
lead  of  the  French,  all  the  modern  nations  which  have 
adopted  constitutional  government  are  returning  to  the 
Anglo-Saxon  model  as  expressed  either  in  England  or  in 
the  United  States,  making  such  modifications  of  type  as 
local  necessities,  or  local  prejudices  not  yet  overcome, 
may  require.  That  the  political  future  of  the  world 
belongs  to  Anglo-Saxon  institutions  seems  assured.^  

Jll 

One  other  specific  institution  of  the  early  Germans 
deserves  a  passing  notice  in  this  chapter  because  of  its 
later  influence.  That  is  the  comitaius — the  band  of  young 
warriors  who  werF^und  by  an  especially  strong  bond  of 
fidelity  to  the  service  of  a  chief,  were  maintained  by  him, 
and  followed  him  to  war^  It  was  formerly  supposed  that 
this  institution  gave  rise  to  <t1ie  feudal  s>'sttfSD  The  Ger-  AC. 
man  chieT^  it  was  thought,  taking  the  lan3s  which  fell  to 
him  in  the  conquest,  divided  them  among  the  members  of 
his  comitatus,  and,  because  they  remained  under  the  same 
bond  of  fidehty  to  him,  as  their  lord,  after  they  had  re- 
ceived their  land,  the  feudal  system  was  created  at  once. 
But  great  institutions  like  feudaHsm  are  never  struck  out 
at  a  single  blow,  and  this  theory  of  its  origin  was  long  ago 
abandoned  by  continental  scholars  though  living  on  in  En- 
glish books.     We  shall  find,  later  on,  an  important  influ- 

'  That  one  not  infrequently  hears  among  the  Germans  to-day  most  vig- 
orous denial  of  their  great  indebtedness  to  Anglo-Saxon  institutions  is  one 
characteristic  of  the  temporary  phase  of  growth  through  which  Germany 
is  just  now  passing,  and  which  affords  a  most  interesting  study  to  the  stu- 
dent of  comparative  politics.  It  is  a  symptom  of  the  same  sort  as  the  sneer 
at  parliamentary  government  which  may  occasionally  be  heard  from  Ger- 
man university  platforms,  one  among  several  traits,  so  keenly  noted  by 
Lieber  in  the  France  of  the  Second  Empire,  in  his  Civil  Liberty  and  Self- 
Government,  which  may  now  be  found  with  equal  clearness  in  Germany. 


I02  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

ence  which  the  comitaius  exercised  upon  feudalism  in  some 
points  of  detail,  but  it  is  not  one  of  the  sources  from 
which  the  larger  institutional  features  of  the  feudal  sys- 
^j  tem  arose. 

/  Much  has  also  been  written  upon  the  influence  of  cer- 
■^  tain  special  ideas  held  by  the  early  Germans,  such  as  their 
theological  ^nd  ethical  ideas  and  their  high  regard  for 
woman,  much  more  indeed  than  the  facts  will  warrant. 
That  they  had  a  high  respect  for  woman  as  compared 
with  that  of  the  classical  world  of  their  time  is  undoubted, 
but  it  does  not  seem  to  have  been  higher  than  that  of 
Aryan  races  in  general — the  classical  nations  themselves 
— when  in  the  same  stage  of  civilization,  and  in  general 
it  is  sufficient  to  refer  to  what  has  been  said  on  the  sub- 
ject in  the  chapter  on  the  influence  of  Christianity. 

Of  the  influence  of  their  ethical  notions  and  of  their 
somewhat  lofty  conception  of  God^  tjie  most  that  can  be 
affirmed  with  any  certainty  is,  that  they  had  ideas  which 
would  make  the  Christian  teachings  seem  not  altoggiher 
foreign  to  them,^  and  which  very  possibly  made  easy  the 
transition  to  Christianity.  Even  such  a  statement  as  this 
is,  however,  an  inference  from  the  apparent  nature  of  the 
case,  rather  than  from  the  recorded  facts,  and  that  these 
ideas  led  them  to  any  more  perfect  understanding  of 
Christianity,  or  to  any  more  sympathetic  development 
of  it,  than  would  have  been  the  case  without  them,  is  a 
theory  without  historical  support. 

\^  The  coming  in  of  the  Germans  brought  face  to  face 
-^^he  four  chief  elements  of  our  civilization:  'the  Greek 
with  its  art  and  science,  much  of  it  for  the  time  forgotten; 
■T^he  Roman  with  its  political  institutions  and  legal  ideas, 
and  furnishing  the  empire  as  the  common  ground  upon 
which  all  stood ;2Sfie  Christian  with  its  religious  and  moral 
ideas  ;^and  the  German  with  other  political  and  legal 
ideas, /and  with  a  reinforcement  of  fresh  blood  and  life. 


WHAT   THE   GERMANS   ADDED  I03 

By  the  end  of  the  sixth  century  these  all  existed  side  by 
side  in  the  nominal  Roman  Empire.  It  was  the  work  of 
the  remaining  centuries  of  the  middle  ages  to  unite  them 
into  a  single  organic  whole — the  groundwork  of  modern 
civilization. 

But  the  introduction  of  the  last  element,  the  Germans, 
was  a  conquest — a  conquest  rendered  possible  by  the  in- 
ability of  the  old  civilization  any  longer  to  defend  itself 
against  their  attack.  It  is  one  of  the  miracles  of  his- 
tory that  such  a  conquest  should  have  occurred,  the 
violent  occupation  of  the  empire  by  the  invasion  of  an 
inferior  race,  with  so  little  destruction  of  civilization, 
with  so  complete  an  absorption,  in  the  end,  of  the  con- 
queror by  the  conquered.  That  there  was  loss  of  civili- 
zation is  not  denied.  The  general  average  was  greatly 
lowered.  The  centuries  that  follow  were  in  some  ways 
the  "dark  ages."  But  the  strange  thing  is  that,  consid- 
ering what  happened,  the  darkness  was  not  deeper  and 
that  the  recovery  was  so  complete.  It  must  be  pos- 
sible to  point  out  some  reasons  why  the  conquest  of  the 
ancient  world  by  the  Germans  was  so  little  what  might 
be  expected. 

In  a  single  word,  the  reason  is  to  be  found  in  the  im- 
pression which  the  world  they  had  conquered  made  upon 
the  Germans.  They  conquered  it,  and  they  treated  it  as 
a  conquered  world.  They  destroyed  and  plundered  what 
they  pleased,  and  it  was  not  a  little.  They  took  posses- 
sion of  the  land  and  they  set  up  their  own  tribal  govern- 
ments in  place  of  the  Roman.  ^An^L^t  they  recognized, 
in,.a_way,  even  the  jvorst  of  them,  their  inferiority  to  the 
•  people-they  had  overcome:  -^They  found  upon  every  side 
of  them  evidences  of  a  command  over  nature  such  as 
they  had  never  acquired:  cities,  buildings,  roads,  bridges, 
and  ships;  wealth  and  art,  skill  in  mechanics  and  skill  in 
government,  the  like  of  which  they  had  never  known; 
ideas  firmly  held  that  the  Roman  system  of  things  was 


I04  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

divinely  ordained  and  eternal;  a  church  strongly  organ- 
ized and  with  an  imposing  ceremonial,  officered  by  vener- 
able and  saintly  men,  and  speaking  with  an  overpower- 
ing positiveness  and  an  awful  authority  that  did  not  yield 
before  the  strongest  barbarian  king.  The  impression 
which  these  things  made  upon  the  mind  of  the  German 
must  have  been  profound.  In  no  other  way  can  the 
result  be  accounted  for.  Tljjgir_i:miqii£sl--was-_a,physical 
conquest,  and  as  a  physical  conquest  it  was  complete, 
but  ir~scarcely  went  farther.  In  government  and  law 
there  was  httle  change  for  the  Roman;  in  religion  and 
language,  none  at  all.  Other  things,  schools  and  com- 
mercial arrangements  for  instance,  the  Germans  would 
have  been  glad  to  maintain  at  the  Roman  level  if  they 
had  known  how.  Half  unconsciously  they  adopted  the 
belief  in  the  divinely  founded  and  eternal  empire,  and  in 
a  vague  way  recognized  its  continuance  after  they  had 
overthrown  it.  As  time  went  on,  and  they  identified 
themselves  more  closely  still  with  the  people,  ideas,  and 
institutions  of  the  old  civilization,  their  belief  in  the  per- 
manence of  the  empire  became  more  clear,  and  furnished 
the  foundation  for  the  Roman  Empire  of  Charlemagne, 
and  for  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  to  which  that  led,  a 
strong  influence  for  unity  in  the  most  chaotic  portion  of 
medieval  history. 

/  If  from  one  point  of  view,  it  seems  strange  that  so 
ymuch  that  was  Roman  remained,  looked  at  from  the  side 
/of  the  superiority  of  the  ancient  civilization  and  the  evi- 
dent impression  which  it  made  upon  the  Germans,  it 
seems  strange,  in  turn,  that  so  much  that  was  German 
survived.  It  is  one  of  the  most  fundamental  facts  of 
the  history  of  civilization  that  this  was  a  union  upon 
fairly  equal  terms  of  German  and  Roman  to  form  a  new 
whole  and  to  begin  a  new  progress. 

Having  now  brought  together  all  the  chief  elements  of 
medieval  history,  we  have  next  to  take  up  the  first  great 


WHAT    THE    GERMANS    ADDED  I05 

movement  which  properly  belongs  to  that  history  itself 
in  so  far  as  the  introduction  of  the  Germans  is  not  to  be 
so  described — the  transformation  of  the  primitive  Chris- 
tian organization  into  a  monarchical  church. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  PAPACY 

The  centuries  whose  outline  we  have  been  studying 
were  dark  and  despairing  centuries  for  the  patriotic 
Roman.  It  seemed  as  if  the  worid  was  falhng  to  ruin 
around  him.  Calamity  followed  calamity  in  quick  suc- 
cession. Pestilence,  famine,  earthquake,  rebellion,  and 
invasion  trod  one  upon  the  heels  of  the  other  without 
cessation.  The  world  was  coming  to  an  end.  He  could 
not  see  as  we  can  now  see  that  the  foundations  were 
being  laid  for  new  states  greater  than  his  own,  and  that 
the  life-giving  elements  of  a  new  and  higher  civilization 
were  being  added  to  the  old.  He  could  see  only  what 
was  manifestly  true,  that  the  greatest  political  power  of 
history  was  passing  away. 

But  not  all  the  ancient  society  shared  this  feeling  of 
despair.  A  considerable  body  of  Roman  citizens  looked 
to  the  future  with  hope,  and  had  no  fear  that  all  that 
men  had  gained  would  be  lost,  and  they,  as  well  as  the 
Germans,  were  laying  new  foundations,  broad  and  strong, 
for  the  future  to  build  upon.  We  have  examined  the 
early  history  of  the  Christian  church,  its  slight  beginning, 
its  conflict  with  paganism,  and  its  final  victory,  and  the 
new  ideas  which  it  introduced.  But  the  history  of  the 
early  church  as  a  religion  is  only  a  small  part  of  its  his- 
tory. Upon  the  foundation  offered  by  the  simple  and 
scarcely  organized  society  of  the  pentecostal  days  was 
gradually  constructed,  by  the  operation  of  causes  far  dif- 
ferent from  any  contained  in  the  four  gospels,  the  most 

106 


THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  PAPACY         107 

permanent  and  most  powerful  organization  of  history — 
the  Roman  church.  During  all  the  dark  days  of  the 
German  settlement  and  of  the  confused  pohtical  condi- 
tions which  followed,  it  was  the  most  effective  preserva- 
tive and  assimilative  force  at  work,  and  while  all  the 
other  great  creations  of  the  middle  ages — the  Holy 
Roman  Empire  and  the  feudal  system — have  passed  away 
leaving  only  shadowy  remains  behind  them,  it  has  con- 
tinued down  into  our  own  times,  a  world-embracing 
power  of  great  and  living  influence,  notwithstanding  the 
loss  of  much  to  which  it  once  laid  claim.  It  is  then  a 
matter  of  the  utmost  importance  in  the  history  of  civili- 
zation to  trace  the  steps  by  which  the  primitive  church, 
as  the  New  Testament  describes  it,  was  transformed  into 
this  vast  and  highly  perfected  ''work  of  human  policy," 
as  Macaulay  justly  called  it. 

Into  the  question  of  the  origin  of  the  episcopate,  be- 
longing to  the  history  of  the  primitive  church,  I  shall 
not  go.  Suffice  it  to  say  that,  however  simply  and 
loosely  organized  the  primitive  church  may  have  been, 
by  the  time  of  the  conversion  of  Constantine  the  prin- 
cipal causes  were  already  at  work  which  transformed  it 
into  a  hierarchical  organization,  and  their  results  were 
already  plainly  manifest  in  the  growing  separation  of 
clergy  from  laity  as  a  different  body  with  distinct  rights 
and  privileges,  and  divided  within  itself  into  various 
grades  of  rank  and  power.  It  will  be  the  work  of  this 
chapter  to  trace  the  further  operation  of  these  and  other 
causes  which  transformed  this  organization  of  the  early 
fourth  century,  more  aristocratic  than  monarchical  in 
character  at  that  point,  into  the  theocratic  absolutism  of 
later  times.  The  process  was  not  complete  in  the  period 
which  falls  within  the  chapter,  but  it  was  so  fully  under 
way  that  only  some  revolutionary  change  of  direction  in 
the  currents  of  history  could  have  prevented  its  accom- 
plishment. 


Io8  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

As,  according  to  the  most  probable  view,  one  of  the 
clergy  of  a  city  had  been  able  to  create  a  power  over  the 
others,  and  give  rise  to  the  oflSce  of  bishop,  in  its  later 
meaning,  so  it  was  natural  that  the  next  step  in  logical 
order  should  be  taken,  and  the  bishop  of  the  most  im- 
portant or  capital  city  of  a  province  should  extend  his 
power  over  the  other  bishops  of  the  province  and  create 
the  ofi&ce  of  archbishop.  One  more  step,  equally  logical, 
remained  to  be  taken  when  the  bishop  of  the  greatest 
city  of  a  large  region — Alexandria  or  Antioch — or  of  the 
capital  city  of  the  empire,  should  create  a  power  over 
archbishops  and  bishops  alike,  and  found  an  ecclesiastical 
monarchy. 

This  indicates,  however,  only  a  general  tendency.  It 
tells  us  nothing  of  the  causes  which  enabled  the  forming 
constitution  actually  to  take  the  direction  which  this  ten- 
dency indicated.  Had  not  the  circumstances  of  the  time 
favored  growth  along  this  line,  these  beginnings,  however 
promising  and  apparently  natural,  could  have  led  to  no 
result.  It  is,  then,  to  the  favoring  circumstances,  all 
seeming  to  conspire  together  to  cherish  this  natural  ten- 
dency, to  the  conditions  in  which  this  growing  church 
constitution  was  placed,  that  we  must  turn  to  ascertain 
the  real  causes  of  the  monarchical  government  which 
resulted. 

In  beginning  a  study  of  these  causes  it  is  necessary, 
before  all  else,  to  fix  clearly  in  mind  the  fact  that  the 
Christian  religion  was  not  one  of  them.  There  is  no  one 
form  of  government  or  organization  to  which,  as  a  relig- 
ion, it  directly  leads. 

It  is,  indeed,  a  thing  most  vitally  important,  here  and 
throughout  the  whole  course  of  history,  that  the  church 
should  be  distinguished  from  Christianity.  Connected 
with  the  history  of  this  religion  there  are  three  totally 
distinct  things,  each  finding  its  beginning,  its  opportu- 


THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  PAPACY         lOQ 

nity  to  grow,  in  the  earliest  Christianity,  but  each  produced 
by  a  totally  different  set  of  causes  and  having  an  almost 
wholly  independent  Hfe,  a  life  at  any  rate  in  no  way 
necessarily  controlled  by  either  of  the  others. 

One  of  these  is  Christianity  considered  as  a  religion 
simply;  that  personal  faith  in,  and  love  for,  a  divine 
Saviour  and  a  divine  Father  by  him  revealed  which  brings 
the  individual  into  conscious  unity  with  God,  and  be- 
comes for  him  an  unequalled  help  in  right  living;  that 
personal  faith  which  exists  apparently  with  equal  per- 
fection and  equally  complete  results  under  every  ecclesi- 
astical system  and  in  connection  with  every  form  of  dog- 
matic belief.  That  such  a  power  exists  and  that  such 
results  fellow  from  these  causes  is  manifest  from  an  over- 
whelming abundance  of  ex'idence  to  any  student  of  his- 
torical details,  whatever  bitter  hatred  or  murderous  cruelty 
may  have  grown  out  of  theological  differences,  or  what- 
ever l>'ing  trickery  out  of  ecclesiastical  strife. 

The  second  of  these  is  the  church  as  an  organization, 
an  ecclesiastical  system,  a  governmental  or  political  in- 
stitution. Based  upon  a  body  of  people  who  profess  the 
Christian  rehgion,  it  is  nevertheless  an  outgrowth  of  their 
political,  legal,  organizing  instincts,  and  not  of  anything 
whatever  connected  with  the  religion  as  a  religion.  It 
would  seem  as  if  this  must  be  entirely  clear  to  any  one 
who  remembers  how  perfectly  the  same  rehgious  Hfe  has 
shown  itself,  the  same  rehgious  results  have  been  achieved, 
under  the  most  widely  varying  forms  of  organization  pos- 
sible to  thought.  Xavier  and  Wesley  and  Woolman, 
whatever  faults  of  character  or  of  temperament  remained 
unsubdued,  are  all  alike  instances  of  the  transforming 
and  inspiring  power  of  the  same  single  force. 

The  third  is  the  dogmatic  system,  the  body  of  theo- 
logical beliefs  of  a  given  age  or  people.  Based  again  on 
the  primary  facts  of  the  Christian  rehgion,  it  is  not  created 
or  rendered  necessary  in  the  least  by  anything  connected 


no  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

with  that  religion  as  religion  merely,  but  is  an  outgrowth 
wholly  of  the  scientific  instinct,  of  the  natural  and  inevi- 
table attempt  of  the  mind  to  explain  these  primary  facts, 
and  to  construct  the  explanations  made  into  a  reasonable 
and  logical  system.  These  explanatory  theories  differ 
very  widely  from  one  another,  as  it  is  necessary  that  they 
should,  since  they  are  formed  under  varying  philosophical 
preconceptions,  and  the  varying  conditions  of  different 
ages  and  different  races,  but  these  differences  of  scientific 
system  do  not  in  the  slightest  degree  imply  any  difference 
in  the  primary  facts  and  experiences  whose  explanation 
is  attempted.  It  is  an  incontestable  fact  that  many  a 
bloody  civil  war  has  been  fought  between  Christian  sects 
who  did  not  differ  from  one  another  upon  any  essential 
religious  truth  whatever.  In  the  weakness  of  their  not 
yet  wholly  civilized  or  Christianized  human  nature  their 
varying  explanations  seemed  to  them  as  vitally  important 
as  the  fundamental  fact  itself  which  they  were  attempt- 
ing to  explain,  and  so  they  burned  and  tortured  to  save 
men's  souls. 

These  dogmatic  systems  and  these  ecclesiastical  sys- 
tems both  grow  out  of  necessities  of  human  nature.  The 
mind  must  seek  some  philosophical  explanation  for  fa- 
miliar facts,  and  a  group  of  people  influenced  by  the  same 
desires  and  motives  must  take  upon  themselves  that  form 
of  organization  which  seems  to  them  the  most  natural. 
But  neither  the  dogmatic  system,  nor  the  ecclesiastical 
system,  of  any  given  time  or  place,  is  Christianity.  The 
causes  which  have  created  the  one  are  not  those  which 
have  created  the  other,  and  the  one  set  of  causes  must 
not  be  held  responsible  for  results  which  have  followed 
from  the  other.  So  completely  indispensable  is  this  dis- 
tinction that  absolutely  no  trustworthy  reasoning  about 
Christian  history  is  possible  if  it  is  lost  sight  of;  causes 
and  effects  become  inextricably  confused,  and  wholly  un- 
necessary blundering  and  bitter  controversy  have  often 
been  the  result. 


THE   FORMATION    OF    THE   PAPACY  III 

These  truths  may  be  said  to  be  commonplaces  of  the 
best  religious  thinking  of  to-day,  but  they  have  been  so 
constantly  disregarded  in  historical  study  and  writing 
that  they  ought  to  be  emphasized  even  at  the  expense 
of  repetition. 

Of  the  direct  causes  which  did  further  the  tendency 
already  begun  in  the  church  towards  a  monarchical  con- 
stitution, the  most  potent  and  effective  may  be  brought 
under  two  heads — the  change  which  took  place  in  the 
popular  understanding  of  Christianity  itself,  and  the 
influence  of  Rome. 

For  the  fitrst  two  centuries  Christianity  had  continued 
to  be,  comparatively  speaking,  the  simple  and  spiritual 
religion  of  its  primitive  days.  Two  very  serious  attempts 
had  been  made  to  change  its  character,  but  without  suc- 
cess. One  of  these  had  been  an  attempt  to  unite  the  old 
Jewish  system  with  it,  and  if  not  to  compel  the  Gentile 
Christian  to  become  almost  a  Jew,  at  least  to  compel 
Christianity  to  adopt  some  of  the  characteristic  forms 
and  ideas  of  Judaism.  We  can  discern  evidences  of  this 
struggle  between  the  new  and  the  old  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. The  other  was  an  attempt  to  engraft  upon  Chris- 
tianity certain  speculations  of  oriental  philosophy  con- 
cerning the  nature  of  the  supernatural  and  the  order  of 
the  universe.  This  gave  rise  to  the  heresy  known  as 
Gnosticism  and  to  a  long  and  severe  contest,  ending,  as 
the  earlier  strife  had  done,  in  the  preservation  in  all 
essential  points  of  the  primitive  Christianity. 

In  the  meantime  there  was  developing,  from  the  very 
slight  beginnings  of  the  early  days,  a  theological  system 
and  a  ritual.  In  both  these  directions  these  first  two 
attempts  to  change  the  character  of  Christianity  had 
great  influence.  Every  heresy  which  was  strong  enough 
to  offer  battle  had  a  decided  effect  upon  the  growth  of 
theology  by  compelling  greater  definiteness  of  behef  and 
clearness  of  statement. 


112  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Much  the  most  powerful  force,  however,  in  transform- 
ing the  slender  theological  stock  of  the  primitive  docu- 
ments into  a  vast  and  complex  dogmatic  system  was  the 
Greek  philosophy.  The  speculative  instinct  of  the  Greek 
would  not  allow  him  to  rest  in  the  few  simple  facts  which 
Christianity  taught.  The  questions  which  those  facts 
raise  in  every  thinking  mind,  he  must  attempt  to  solve, 
and  in  doing  so  it  is  his  philosophizing  genius  and  his 
already  formed  philosophy  which  he  calls  to  his  aid.  By 
the  time  of  the  conversion  of  Constantine  this  theological 
system  had  assumed  large  proportions,  and  some  of  its 
most  recondite  problems  were  already  under  discussion. 

But  notwithstanding  all  these  attacks  upon  it,  and 
additions  to  it  from  outside  sources,  the  Christian  relig- 
ion had  remained  until  towards  the  middle  of  the  third 
century  essentially  unchanged.  Men  came  into  it  be- 
cause it  answered  their  religious  needs,  and  at  some  cost 
to  themselves  of  difficulty  and  danger,  and  its  power  over 
them  was  that  of  a  spiritual  faith. 

But  when  the  Christian  church  began  to  grow  rapidly, 
and  its  social  standing  to  improve,  and  when  priests  and 
bishops  began  to  hold  positions  of  influence  and  power 
and  to  manage  considerable  financial  interests,  then  men 
began  to  come  into  it  from  other  motives  than  convic- 
tion— because  it  was  fashionable,  or  because  its  offices 
were  attractive  to  the  ambitious.  When  Christianity  be- 
came the  religion  of  the  court  and  of  the  state  this  ten- 
dency was  greatly  increased.  Masses  of  men  passed  in 
name  over  into  Christianity  with  no  understanding  of 
what  it  was,  bringing  with  them  the  crude  religious  con- 
ceptions and  practices  of  paganism,  unable  to  understand 
the  spiritual  truths  of  Christianity  and  with  no  share  in 
the  inner  spiritual  life  of  the  Christian. 

The  result  could  easily  be  predicted.  No  system — re- 
ligious, political,  or  philosophical — could  survive  the  in- 
vasion of  so  much  alien  material  not  in  harmony  with 


THE    FORMATION    OF    THE    PAPACY  II3 

its  fundamental  teachings  without  serious  loss.  It  was 
unavoidable  that  Christianity  should  decline  towards  the 
pagan  level.  It  is  not  easy  under  any  circumstances  to 
keep  alive  a  keen  perception  of  higher  spiritual  truths  in 
the  mass  of  mankind.  In  such  circumstances  as  these 
it  was  entirely  impossible,  and  though  perhaps  never  lost 
sight  of  by  the  better  spirits,  these  truths  gradually 
passed  out  of  the  popular  religious  consciousness,  and 
their  place  was  taken  by  something  easier  to  understand, 
and  answering  to  a  lower  religious  need. 

The  clearest  illustration,  probably,  of  this  paganizing 
process  is  the  introduction  of  the  worship  of  saints.  The 
pagan,  trained  in  polytheistic  notions,  having  a  separate 
divinity  for  every  interest  of  life,  found  the  Christian 
monotheistic  idea  hard  to  understand.  The  one  only 
God  seemed  to  him  far  off  and  cold,  hard  to  reach  with 
the  prayers  of  a  mere  man.  He  felt  the  necessity  of  put- 
ting in  between  himself  and  God  the  nearer  and  more 
human  subordinate  divinities  who  had  been  made  famil- 
iar to  him  by  his  earlier  religion,  and  who  seemed  to  him 
easier  of  access.  And  so  he  created  a  Christian  polythe- 
ism, partly  by  putting  some  holy  man  of  the  past  in  the 
place  of  the  pagan  divinity,  assigning  to  him  the  special 
guardianship  of  the  same  interest  or  locality,  sometimes, 
as  we  can  now  see,  actually  translating  the  pagan  divin- 
ity himself  into  a  Christian  saint. 

This  process  was  no  doubt  aided  by  the  general  bar- 
barization  of  the  Roman  society  which  was  going  on  at 
the  same  time,  and  which  shows  itself  in  language  and 
art  and  military  tactics,  and  in  almost  every  direction; 
but  it  affected  Christianity  chiefly  through  the  mass  of 
really  unchristianized  material  which  entered  the  church. 
The  resulting  product  had  undoubtedly  an  immensely 
elevating  and  purifying  effect  on  the  paganism  of  the 
empire.  The  truths  taught  through  it,  and  held  in  mind 
by  means  of  it,  were  higher  and  better  than  anything  in 


114  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  old  system.  It  furnished,  very  possibly,  the  only 
practicable  road  by  which  the  mass  of  the  people  could 
pass  to  an  understanding  of  the  more  perfect  ideas  which 
they  needed  to  learn,  and  the  Catholic  church  has  not 
been  without  a  plausible  defence  for  very  similar  prac- 
tices, adopted  more  consciously  and  at  a  later  date,  in 
the  conversion  of  pagan  nations.  But  notwithstanding 
all  this,  it  denoted  a  very  decided  change  to  a  lower  level 
in  the  popular  understanding  of  Christianity. 

While,  however,  the  introduction  of  the  worship  of 
saints  is  a  striking  illustration  of  this  paganization  of 
Christianity,  another  result  of  it  was  much  more  impor- 
tant in  the  development  of  the  constitution  of  the  church, 
that  result  which  is  called  the  "externaHzing"  of  Chris- 
tianity—its transformation  from  a  religion  of  the  spirit 
into  a  religion  of  externals. 

In  the  place  of  the  inner  spiritual  life,  as  the  deter- 
mining characteristic  of  the  Christian,  were  placed,  more 
and  more  as  the  spiritual  side  was  lost  sight  of,  forms 
and  intellectual  beliefs  and  membership  in  a  visible 
church.  If  one  accepted  the  theology  of  the  church,  and 
conformed  to  its  regulations,  and  was  in  regular  standing 
in  some  orthodox  local  church,  he  was  a  Christian.  If 
he  refused  to  accept  some  point  of  the  theology  and  was 
cast  out  of  the  church,  or  if  for  any  reason  he  was  not  to 
be  found  within  its  recognized  visible  membership,  then 
he  was  not  a  Christian,  no  matter  what  profession  he 
might  make.^  Such  tests  as  these  were  much  easier  to 
understand  and  to  apply  than  the  older  spiritual  concep- 
tions. 

'  "  Do  they  who  are  met  together  outside  the  church  of  Christ  think  that 
Christ  is  with  them  when  they  have  met?  Even  if  such  persons  may  have 
been  put  to  death  in  confession  of  the  Name,  this  stain  is  not  washed  away 
by  their  blood.  ...  It  is  not  possible  for  one  to  be  a  martyr  who  is  not 
in  the  church.  .  .  .  They  cannot  abide  with  God  who  are  unwilling  to  be 
in  concord  with  the  church." — St.  Cyprian  of  Carthage,  De  Cath.  Eccl. 
Uniiate,  chaps.  13  and  T4. 


THE   FORMATION    OF    THE   PAPACY  II5 

It  may  be  difficult  to  see,  as  some  have  suggested,  how 
Christianity  could  have  been  preserved  at  all,  during  the 
ages  which  were  to  follow,  without  this  compact  organi- 
zation, and  without  this  great  body  of  theology,  esteemed 
so  vitally  important  as  to  be  maintained  at  all  hazards, 
and,  because  it  was  purely  intellectual,  far  more  easily  re- 
tained in  times  of  general  decline  than  the  deeper  spir- 
itual truths  of  religion.  But  the  whole  effect  was  to 
transform  Christianity  in  the  world  into  a  definite,  visible 
body,  sharply  defined  from  non-Christians  and  from  her- 
etics, distinguished  everywhere  by  the  same  external, 
easily  recognized  signs  and  marks,  its  members  readily 
counted  and  measured. 

When  the  idea  of  such  a  distinct  unity  came  to  prevail, 
and  when  it  had  begun  to  express  itself  in  the  use  of  com- 
mon ceremonies  and  a  common  creed,  made  with  great 
care  to  conform  to  the  recognized  standards,  it  was  per- 
fectly natural,  inevitable  indeed,  that  a  further  step 
should  be  taken,  that  the  mere  fact  of  the  formation  to 
such  an  extent  of  a  universal  community,  should  become 
itself  a  most  powerful  force  in  creating  a  community  of 
law  and  administration;  in  forming,  in  other  words,  a 
common  ecclesiastical  government  which  should  corre- 
spond to  and  guard  and  regulate  the  community  of  cere- 
monies and  doctrines  already  formed.  The  constant  ap- 
peal to  an  ideal  unity  tended  strongly  to  create  a  real  one. 

The  second  of  the  two  great  causes  which  led  to  the 
formation  of  the  monarchical  church  was  Rome — -the 
group  of  influences  and  ideas  which  grew  out  of  the  his- 
tory and  position  of  Rome  and  the  Roman  Empire.  So 
decisive  and  controlling  are  these  ideas  and  influences, 
when  taken  together,  that  we  may  say  that  without  them 
the  monarchical  church  would  never  have  existed. 

In  the  first  place,  Rome  was  the  capital  of  the  political 
world.  What  could  be  more  natural  than  that  it  should 
be  looked  upon  also  as  the  reUgious  capital  of  the  world. 


Il6  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

The  fact  that  he  was  the  bishop  of  the  actual  capital  city 
was  perhaps  the  most  important  cause  which  established 
the  power  of  the  patriarch  of  Constantinople  over  the 
East.  But  even  after  the  estabHshment  of  Constanti- 
nople Rome  continued  to  be  looked  upon  as  in  some 
especial  sense  the  central  city  and  capital  of  the  world, 
and  the  feeling  which  had  helped  the  bishop  of  Constan- 
tinople was  a  much  greater  aid  to  the  bishop  of  Rome, 
though  he  may  himself  have  declined  to  admit  the  fact. 

In  the  second  place,  the  Roman  imperiaHsm  was  the 
only  constitutional  model  which  the  early  church  had 
before  it.  As  it  began  to  grow  into  a  common  organiza- 
tion of  widely  separated  provinces,  it  could  hardly  do 
otherwise  than  to  take  the  shape  of  the  only  government 
of  that  sort  which  the  world  had  known,  and  to  copy 
not  merely  names,  like  diocese,  but  also  oflEices  and  meth- 
ods. It  is  an  interesting  fact,  however,  that  this  copying 
was  by  no  means  slavish,  but  along  with  it  a  free  poHtical 
genius  was  also  at  work,  inventing  new  institutions  for 
new  needs,  as  is  seen,  at  least  in  its  more  characteristic 
features,  in  the  important  evolution  of  the  church  council. 

Again,  in  the  third  place,  just  as  the  ancient  Greek 
philosophic  spirit  awoke  to  a  new  Hfe  and  power  in  de- 
veloping the  theological  system  of  the  early  church,  so 
also  the  old  Roman  genius  for  political  organization  and 
rule  found  a  new  field  for  its  activity,  and  a  new  empire 
to  found  in  the  creation  of  the  papacy.  There  was  no 
longer  any  opportunity  for  it  in  the  political  sphere.  Its 
work  was  finished  there,  but  in  the  history  of  the  West- 
ern church  there  was  a  succession  of  great  spirits,  men  of 
imperial  ideas  and  genius,  which  recalls  the  line  of  states- 
men of  earlier  Roman  days,  and  accompKshed  a  similar 
work.  JuHus,  Innocent,  Leo,  and  Gregory,  each  the  first 
of  his  name,  bishops  of  Rome,  and  Ambrose,  bishop  of 
Milan,  are  examples,  only,  of  the  men  who,  whether  the 
opportunity  which  was  offered  them  to  advance  the  power 


THE   FORMATION   OF   THE   PAPACY  II7 

of  their  office  and  to  create  definite  constitutional  prece- 
dents was  large  or  small,  saw  in  it  its  fullest  possibilities 
and  used  it  for  the  utmost  gain.  It  was  in  the  minds 
of  these  men,  and  in  the  atmosphere  of  Rome,  where  every 
influence  was  of  empire  and  all  the  traditions  imperial, 
that  the  idea  first  took  shape  that  the  one  great  church 
should  find  its  head,  its  divinely  ordained  primate,  in  the 
bishop  of  Rome;  vaguely  at  first,  no  doubt,  and  with 
slowly  growing  consciousness,  but  definitely  enough  to 
form  a  consistent  working  model,  through  all  the  vary- 
ing circumstances  of  their  different  reigns. 

Under  this  head  also  should  be  included  the  legal  ten- 
dency of  the  Roman  mind.  To  this  more  than  to  any- 
thing else  is  due  the  creation  of  a  great  body  of  theology 
suited  in  character  to  the  Western  mind — a  system  not 
so  finely  speculative  as  the  Eastern,  but  practical  and 
legal  and  clearly  systematic.  This  gave  to  the  West,  as  a 
defining  and  organizing  core,  a  body  of  doctrines  of  its 
own,  independent  of  the  Eastern,  and  tended  to  give  it, 
also,  a  secure  position  as  a  separate  church  organization. 
The  genius,  indeed,  of  its  great  constructive  theologian, 
St.  Augustine,  one  of  the  greatest  names  in  the  intellec- 
tual history  of  the  world,  surpasses  even  the  genius  of  its 
great  constructive  pontiffs.  It  was  his  work  to  give  to 
the  Western  church,  just  beginning  to  take  on  its  sepa- 
rate existence,  the  crystalHzing  body  of  thought  which  it 
needed  to  put  into  definite  and  scientific  statement  the 
things  for  which  it  stood  and  which  gave  it  distinctive 
existence.  The  church  did  not  remain  true  to  all  the 
teachings  of  St.  Augustine,  but  the  influence  of  his  theol- 
ogy in  the  formative  age  of  the  Roman  church  may  easily 
be  inferred  from  the  strong  constructive  influence  which 
it  exerted  in  a  later  and  more  familiar  age  when  ecclesi- 
astical organizations  were  again  taking  shape — in  the  age 
of  the  Reformation. 

Again,  the  idea  of  the  divinely  founded  and  eternal 


Il8  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

empire  of  Rome  was  a  most  potent  influence.  In  the 
pagan  mind  this  idea  had  been  formed  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  widely  extended  conquests  of  Rome,  doubt- 
less as  a  vague  reaching  after  a  reasonable  explanation 
of  such  wonderful  successes  and  such  an  unparalleled 
power.  This  idea  the  Christians  also  had  taken  up  and 
transformed  into  a  still  wider  conception,  adding  to  it 
that  idea  which  they  held  so  strongly  of  the  growing 
kingdom  of  Christ  which  was  to  fill  the  whole  world. 
In  doing  so,  they  made  it  the  foundation  of  what  has 
been  called  justly,  at  least  so  far  as  definiteness  of  con- 
ception goes,  the  first  philosophy  of  history.^  Rome  was 
for  the  Christian,  as  for  the  pagan,  a  divinely  founded 
empire  and  destined  to  be  eternal.  The  one  God,  how- 
ever, took  the  place  of  the  pagan  divinities  as  the  divine 
architect,  and  his  final  purpose  was  to  be  found,  the 
Christian  believed,  not  in  a  great  political  empire  but  in  the 
one  great  spiritual  and  religious  unity  of  the  world  which 
that  political  empire  had  rendered  possible.  Rome  pre- 
pared the  way  for  and  prefigured  the  kingdom  of  Christ. 
The  influence  of  this  conception  upon  the  idea  of  the 
Christian  church,  as  forming  a  world-embracing  unity 
organized  into  one  united  government,  can  hardly  be 
overstated.  The  fact  that  we  may  now  be  able  to  put 
the  thought  into  more  definite  language  than  even  St. 
Augustine  in  any  single  passage,  is  no  evidence  that  its 
influence  was  not  profound,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt 
but  that  this  "idea  of  Rome"  was  one  of  the  most  power- 
ful  forces   in   creating   that   conception   of   a   necessary 

^  St.  Augustine's  idea  of  the  two  cities,  the  two  opposed  commonwealths 
continuing  through  history,  the  city  of  God  or  of  righteousness,  and  the 
city  of  Satan  or  of  wickedness,  is  a  clearly  conceived  philosophy  of  history, 
and  one  which  still  retains  its  hold,  even  literally,  in  the  form  in  which  he 
stated  it,  over  many  minds.  It  needs,  indeed,  but  very  little  modification 
of  terms  and  definitions,  but  little  variation  in  description  of  the  eternal 
conflict  between  good  and  evil,  to  be  accepted,  as  a  fairly  correct  descrip- 
Hcsfl  of  what  history  is,  by  one  who  holds  any  of  the  modern  theories. 


THE   FORMATION   OF   THE   PAPACY  II9 

church  unity  in  belief  and  organization  which  is  one  of 
the  corner-stones,  the  one  essential  foundation,  indeed,  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  monarchy. 

There  ought  to  be  mentioned,  perhaps,  in  close  con- 
nection with  this  idea  of  the  divine  purpose  in  history, 
though  it  cannot  be  clearly  proved  to  be  an  outgrowth 
of  it,  the  belief  which  grew  up  in  the  church,  of  the  posi- 
tion assigned  to  the  Apostle  Peter.  The  more  or  less 
conscious  belief  in  a  necessary  church  unity  must  cer- 
tainly have  been  wide-spread  before  any  such  idea  could 
have  been  formed  regarding  him,  but  when  it  had  once 
taken  shape  it  became  a  most  efficient  influence  in  creat- 
ing an  actual  unity  and  making  Rome  its  centre.  It  is 
hard,  in  the  absence  of  decisive  historical  evidence,  to 
avoid  the  conclusion  that  the  belief  that  Rome  was  des- 
tined by  Providence  to  be  the  rehgious  capital  of  the 
world,  was  the  sole  basis  of  the  tradition  that  Peter  was 
bishop  of  Rome.^  The  two  lines  of  belief  certainly  ran 
together  as  may  be  indicated  in  this  way:  A  literal  inter- 
pretation of  certain  passages  in  the  New  Testament  ap- 
pears to  indicate  that  Christ  gave  to  Peter  authority  over 
the  other  apostles;  therefore  Peter's  church  would  have 
authority  over  other  churches.  But  the  divine  plan  of 
history  makes  Rome  the  political  capital  of  all  the  world; 
therefore  it  was  the  divine  purpose,  since  the  political 
exists  for  the  sake  of  the  religious,  that  Rome  should 
be  the  world's  religious  capital.  So  Peter,  the  prince  of 
the  apostles,  founds  his  church  in  Rome,  the  capital  city, 
and  by  Christ's  direct  authority  and  by  the  evident  di- 
vine plan  of  history  the  Roman  church  is  supreme  over 
all  other  churches. 

This  argument  was  undoubtedly  first  developed  in  a 
purely  theoretical  form  against  heretics  and  separatists, 
as  in  the  treatise  of  Cyprian  of  Carthage  already  quoted. 

'  See,  however,  the  strong  argument  in  favor  of  the  tradition  in  Ramsay's 
The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire  before  A.  D.  170.     London,  1893. 


I20  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Christ  gave  to  Peter  an  ideal  supremacy  over  the  other 
apostles  as  a  symbol  of  the  great  truth  which  he  taught 
in  so  many  forms  that  the  spiritual  kingdom  which  he 
founded  should  remain  one  and  indivisible.  But  it  was 
impossible  that  the  idea  once  formed  should  remain 
merely  theoretical.  As  the  monarchical  constitution 
began  to  take  shape,  it  must  itself  become  an  actual 
ground  of  belief  that  such  a  constitution  was  divinely 
ordained,  and,  with  the  change  in  the  general  conception 
of  Christianity  which  has  been  noticed  from  the  spiritual 
to  the  external,  the  appeal  to  the  actual  and  visible  or- 
ganization as  an  evidence  of  the  divine  intention  would 
be  an  exceedingly  strong  argument. 

In  many  directions  the  special  situation  of  the  Roman 
church  and  its  peculiar  characteristics  were  of  very  great 
value  in  extending  its  influence,  and  finally  in  estabhsh- 
ing  its  supremacy. 

It  was  situated  in  the  only  great  city  of  the  West. 
There  were  in  the  \Vest  no  cities  like  Alexandria  and  An- 
tioch  in  the  East,  natural  capitals  of  great  geographical 
divisions  of  the  empire,  whose  bishops  would  be  tempted 
to  cherish  plans  of  independence  and  extended  rule. 
Carthage  was  early  skat  out  from  any  such  possible  ri- 
valry by  the  Arian  Vandal  conquest  of  Africa,  which 
forced  the  African  church  into  closer  dependence  upon 
Rome.  The  actual  struggle  of  Milan  and  Aries  for  in- 
dependence shows  how  great  the  danger  from  this  source 
might  have  been  had  stronger  cities  existed. 

The  Roman  church  was  the  only  apostolic  church  in 
the  West.  It  was  an  apostolic  church,  even  if  not  Peter's, 
for  Paul  had  labored  there  and  had  written  it  a  very  im- 
portant epistle.  As  doubts  and  divisions  began  to  arise 
in  the  church  on  various  theological  points,  such  churches 
were  thought  to  preserve  a  more  pure  tradition  of  the 
primitive  teaching  than  others,  and  questions  of  diffi- 
culty began  to  be  referred  to  them  for  ad\'ice  and  explana- 


THE   FORMATION    OF    THE   PAPACY  121 

tion,  and  their  doctrine  began  to  be  looked  upon  as  a 
standard.  Rome  was  the  only  church  in  the  West  to 
which  such  reference  could  be  made.^ 

The  Roman  was  the  largest  and  strongest  church  in 
the  West.  It  was  also  much  the  richest  church  and  it 
had  been  very  generous  in  its  gifts  to  poorer  and  weaker 
churches,  which  looked  to  it  for  help. 

It  was  also  with  remarkable  uniformity  an  orthodox 
church.  In  the  days  of  the  forming  theology  and  of  the 
forming  primacy  there  was  great  danger  that  the  Roman 
church  or  the  Roman  bishop  might,  now  and  then,  adopt 
a  doctrine  which  the  opinion  of  the  majority  would  not 
finally  sanction,  a  danger  which  became  practically  im- 
possible when  the  primacy  was  once  established.  The 
fact  that  this  actually  happened  in  only  one  or  two  un- 
important cases  gained  for  the  doctrinal  opinion  of  the 
bishop  of  Rome  a  weight  of  authority  which  it  could  not 
otherwise  have  had.  This  general  doctrinal  orthodoxy 
is,  perhaps,  partly  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  theolog- 
ical differences  were  much  less  numerous  and  less  ex- 
treme in  the  West  than  in  the  more  subtly  philosophical 
East.  At  any  rate,  this  fact  made  the  recognition  of  the 
doctrinal  authority  of  the  Roman  church  a  relatively  sim- 
ple matter.  But  while  the  opinions  which  it  represented 
gained  the  victory  over  all  opposing  views,  the  Roman 
church,  nevertheless,  was  very  tolerant  of  variations  of 
behef  which  it  did  not  consider  essential,  and  it  did  not 
make  the  conditions  hard  for  the  return  of  the  dissenter 
who  had  seen  the  error  of  his  ways.  The  general  toler- 
ance and  wisdom  of  its  doctrinal  oversight  made  the 
growth  of  a  uniformity  of  belief  under  its  headship  com- 
paratively easy. 

'  As  an  early  instance,  we  have  Theodosius  the  Great  declaring  his  will, 
in  380,  with  special  reference  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  that  all  people 
subject  tc^^^ule  "should  hold  that  faith  which  the  divine  Peter  the  Apostle 
deliver#d'(BPBie  Romans,  and  which  now  the  pontiff  Damasus,  and  Peter, 
Bishop  of  Alexandria,  follow." — Cod.  Theod.,  XVI,  i. 


122  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

The  Roman  church  was  a  very  active  missionary  church. 
A  large  number  of  the  churches  throughout  the  whole 
West  had  been  founded  as  missions  from  Rome  and  looked 
to  it  with  a  natural  sense  of  dependence  for  guidance 
and  direction  as  to  the  mother  church.  The  conversion 
of  the  Anglo-Saxons  to  Catholic  Christianity  by  mission- 
aries sent  from  Rome  by  Pope  Gregory  I  had  results  of 
great  importance,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  for  the  pres- 
ervation and  increase  of  the  papal  power  in  a  critical 
period  of  its  history. 

So  many  things  we  have  been  able  to  notice,  tenden- 
cies in  the  church  itself,  Roman  ideas  and  traditions  of 
empire,  characteristics  of  the  Roman  church  and  its  bish- 
ops, which  shaped  from  within,  as  we  may  say,  the  ex- 
ternal constitution.  But  not  merely  these  things,  others 
also,  of  a  different  sort,  worked  towards  the  same  result. 
Especially  deserving  of  mention  are  certain  historical 
events,  happening  beyond  the  control  of  the  Roman 
bishops,  or  not  directl}'-  sought  by  them,  which  became, 
however,  when  they  had  once  occurred,  most  active  in- 
fluences in  this  development. 

First  to  be  considered  is  the  founding  of  Constanti- 
nople. The  first  emperor  who  professed  Christianity  re- 
moved the  seat  of  the  government  to  the  East,  mainly 
in  all  probability  for  strategic  reasons,  and  though  at  a 
later  time  emperors  resided  for  long  periods  in  the  West, 
Rome  ceased  to  be  the  seat  of  government  even  for  them. 
The  bishop  of  Rome  was  left  with  no  more  powerful  and 
overshadowing  presence  beside  him,  to  reduce  his  im- 
portance by  the  constant  comparison.  He  was  not  so 
directly  under  the  control  of  the  emperor  as  he  would 
otherwise  have  been,  and  his  theological  views  seemed 
at  a  distance  much  less  important  than  if  he  had  been 
the  bishop  of  the  immediate  court.  As  a  result,  the  bish- 
ops of  Rome  were  able  to  preserve  much  mo 
dence  of  action  than  were  the  bishops  of  Cons" 


^gjadepen- 
stSKinople, 


THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  PAPACY         1 23 

and  to  maintain  a  consistency  of  theology  impossible  to 
their  rivals,  subject  to  the  demands  of  a  court  which  was 
continually  in  revolution. 

In  another  direction  the  distance  of  the  emperor  had 
important  consequences.  After  the  Lombard  conquest 
of  Italy  the  political  control  of  the  Eastern  emperor  over 
the  city  of  Rome  and  its  neighborhood  became  hardly 
more  than  nominal.  The  exarch  of  Ravenna  was  in 
name  the  representative  of  the  emperor,  but  he  could 
do  nothing  to  help  Rome  in  its  struggle  to  preserve  its 
independence  of  the  Lombard,  and  the  conduct  of  the 
defence,  and  even  the  local  political  administration, 
passed  naturally  into  the  hands  of  the  bishop,  the  most 
important  officer  in  the  city.  In  this  way  there  was  grad- 
ually added  to  the  general  ecclesiastical  power  which  the 
bishops  were  acquiring  the  virtually  independent  political 
government  of  a  little  state. 

This  incipient  temporal  power  was  greatly  extended 
by  Gregory  I,  who  commissioned  civil  and  military  of- 
ficers, made  peace  independently  of  the  empire,  and 
claimed  a  position  above  the  exarch.  This  little  terri- 
tory thus  acquired  was  enlarged  by  the  gifts  of  the  Frank- 
ish  kings,  and  grew  into  the  States  of  the  Church,  so  con- 
trolling an  influence  in  the  later  poUcy  of  the  papacy,  and 
a  stone  of  offence  in  all  international  politics  from  Greg- 
ory I  to  the  present  time.  That  it  was  of  immense  value 
to  the  popes,  as  supreme  rulers  of  the  world  church 
through  all  the  medieval  times,  that  they  were  not  bishops 
of  any  pohtical  realm,  save  of  the  shadowy  Roman  Empire, 
but  occupied  an  independent  temporal  position,  cannot  be 
denied;  that  it  has  been  a  decided  injury  to  the  Cath- 
olic church  in  modern  times,  when  all  interests,  both 
ecclesiastical  and  political,  are  viewed  from  a  wholly  dif- 
ferent point  of  view,  is  almost  equally  clear. 

Another  event,  the  sack  of  Rgme  by  Alaric,  in  410, 
aided  somewhat  in  the  growth  of  this  local  power.     The 


124  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

aristocratic  society  of  the  capital  city,  closely  bound  up 
with  the  Roman  past,  by  tradition  and  by  the  nominal 
positions  which  they  still  held,  had  remained  obstinately 
pagan.  The  bishop  of  Rome,  supported  by  the  mass  of 
the  population,  and  holding  an  office  of  great  power,  was 
yet  not  of  the  highest  local  consideration  so  long  as  the 
senate  and  the  aristocracy  remained  unchristian,  Alaric's 
-sack  of  Rome,  which  largely  spared  the  Christians,  scat- 
tered and  ruined  this  pagan  society  and  left  the  bishop 
and  his  clergy  without  social,  as  they  had  been  without 
official,  rivals. 

Another  event  of  this  sort  was  a  decision  of  the  Council 
of  Sardica,  in  the  year  343.  This  council  had  been  called 
to  reconcile,  if  possible,  the  parties  which  had  grown  up 
in  the  church  out  of  the  Arian  controversy;  but  it  had 
failed  of  its  object,  and  the  Arian  representatives  had  se- 
ceded to  hold  a  meeting  by  themselves  in  Philippopolis. 
The  party  remaining,  we  might  call  it  an  ex-parte  council, 
decreed  a  limited  right  of  appeal  from  local  decisions  to 
Juhus,  at  that  time  bishop  of  Rome.  The  measure  was 
adopted  as  a  means  of  self-defence  to  protect  the  ortho- 
dox bishops  of  the  eastern  European  provinces  from  the 
Arian  majority  there,  but  its  influence  became  in  time 
much  wider  than  was  originally  intended.  It  came  to 
be  understood  to  legalize  all  sorts  of  appeals  to  Rome, 
and  especially  when,  with  the  decline  of  historical  knowl- 
edge, the  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Sardica  became  con- 
fused with  those  of  the  much  more  influential  Council 
of  Nicaea,  they  seemed  to  give  a  sanction  of  the  highest 
authority  to  the  claims  of  the  pope.  Many  other  things 
also  favored  the  growth  of  appeals  to  Rome,  and  a  su- 
preme judicial  authority  in  the  papacy  gradually  came  to 
be  recognized  throughout  the  West,  though  not  without 
some  determined  resistance. 

In  the  year  445,  Leo  I,  involved  in  a  desperate  conflict 
with  the  archbishop  of  Aries,  obtained  from  the  Emperor 


THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  PAPACY         1 25 

Valentinian  III  an  edict  declaring  in  the  most  explicit 
terms  the  supremacy  of  the  bishop  of  Rome  over  the 
church  of  the  empire  in  both  judicial  and  administrative 
matters,  as  a  necessary  means  of  peace  and  unity,  and 
commanding  the  imperial  officers  to  compel  the  disobedi- 
ent to  submit  to  his  authority.  Tliis  was  apparently  de- 
cisive in  the  struggle  with  Aries,  but  that  it  had  any 
large  or  permanent  influence  in  favor  of  the  papacy  does 
not  seem  likely.  The  empire  was  now  falling  rapidly  to 
pieces.  The  imperial  power  was  weak,  and  only  here  and 
there  really  respected.  Large  parts  of  the  West  were 
already  in  the  hands  of  Arian  Germans.  Had  it  not 
been  for  the  fact  that  the  current  was  already  setting 
strongly  towards  papal  supremacy,  and  all  influences 
combining  to  further  it,  this  edict  of  Valentinian's  would 
probably  have  had  no  appreciable  effect.  As  it  was,  its 
effect  could  not  have  been  great. 

A  more  important  cause  of  the  advancement  of  the 
papacy  was  undoubtedly  the  dissolution  of  the  Western 
Empire  itself.  It  might  seem  as  if  the  church  would  be 
involved  in  this  dissolution,  and  that  when  the  imperial 
authority  disappeared  the  authority  of  the  pope,  which 
had  grown  up  under  its  shadow,  and  upon  the  model 
which  the  empire  had  furnished,  would  fall  to  ruins  with 
it.  But  the  church  was  now  too  strong  and  too  indepen- 
dent. The  causes  which  destroyed  the  empire  did  not 
affect  it,  and  it  easily  maintained  its  real  authority  when 
that  of  the  empire  had  become  a  mere  theory.  Indeed 
the  immediate  effect  of  the  destruction  of  the  political 
unity  and  of  the  establishment  of  independent  German 
kingdoms  was  to  draw  the  surviving  Roman  life  in  the 
provinces  into  a  more  close  dependence  upon  the  church 
as  the  only  representative  of  the  old  common  life.  The 
dissolution  of  the  empire  left  the  papacy  the  immediate 
and  natural  heir  of  its  position  and  traditions. 

In  the  period  which  followed  the  German  conquest, 


126  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

by  far  the  most  decisive  influence  was  the  alliance  of 
the  papacy  with  the  Franks;  it  was,  indeed,  one  of  the 
most  eventful  coalitions  ever  entered  into  in  history. 
It  is  no  abuse  of  terms  to  call  this  an  alliance,  for  though 
doubtless  there  was  no  definite  treaty,  nor  even  a  con- 
scious bargain,  it  was  really  a  combination  which  the 
two  great  powers  of  the  future,  fairly  equal  parties  in 
position  and  promise,  formed  with  one  another  at  the 
outset  of  their  common  history,  and  which  they  drew 
more  and  more  close  as  the  circumstances  of  their  growth 
made  it  increasingly  useful.  It  was  one  of  the  essential 
influences  which  preserved  the  papacy  from  the  great 
danger  of  being  completely  absorbed  in  the  overshadow- 
ing Prankish  power  that  there  was  behind  them  both 
this  history  of  mutual  helpfulness  and  respect.  The  de- 
tails of  this  alliance  and  its  results  belong  elsewhere. 
It  should  be  held  in  mind,  however,  as  one  of  the  most 
helpful  historical  influences  in  the  formative  age  of  the 
papal  monarchy. 

This  cannot  pretend  to  be  a  complete  statement  of  the 
causes  which  led  to  the  supremacy  of  the  Roman  church 
and  of  its  bishop  over  the  Western  church.  No  such 
statement  has  ever  yet  been  made,  and  very  likely  none 
is  possible.  It  is  complete  enough,  however,  to  show 
how  all  things,  influences  the  most  widely  separated  in 
character  and  time,  religious  and  political  and  traditional, 
sentiment  and  law  and  theology,  deliberate  purpose  and 
unforeseen  events,  all  combine  to  lead  to  this  common 
conclusion. 

This  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  the  necessities 
of  the  time  demanded  such  a  result,  and  that  the  mo- 
narchical church  had  a  great  work  to  do  which  could  have 
been  done  by  nothing  else  so  well.  It  is  not  diflicult  now 
to  see  what  this  work  was. 

Two  great  dangers  threatened  the  early  church.     One 


THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  PAPACY         1 27 

was  that  it  might  be  absorbed  in  the  state,  and  come  to 
bear  the  same  relation  to  it  that  the  pagan  rehgion  had 
borne,  its  subservient  handmaid,  a  subordinate  depart- 
ment of  the  government  to  be  controlled  and  directed 
to  political  ends.  How  great  this  danger  was  can  be  seen 
in  several  periods  of  the  history  of  the  church  in  the  East- 
ern Empire  when  such  a  result  actually  happened.  But 
however  great  this  danger  may  have  been  under  the  em- 
pire, it  became  far  greater  on  the  establishment  of  the 
German  kingdoms  in  the  West.  Not  merely  the  Arian 
states,  but  the  Catholic  Carolingian  state,  threatened  at 
times  the  absorption  of  the  church  in  the  state  and  the 
control  of  it  for  purposes  foreign  to  its  own.  It  is  im- 
possible to  see  how  the  church  could  have  escaped  this 
danger  without  the  compact  and  strong  interstate  organi- 
zation which  had  been  given  it,  directed  by  a  single  head 
and  according  to  a  single  plan.  Such  a  power,  extend- 
ing beyond  the  limits  of  a  single  state,  and  fairly  on  a 
level  with  that  of  the  king,  commanded  respect  for  its 
vigorous  teaching  of  the  necessary  separation  of  church 
and  state  and  of  the  independent  sphere  of  church  ac- 
tivity. 

The  other  danger  to  which  the  early  church  was  ex- 
posed was  that  the  barbarizing  process  from  which  the 
Christian  religion  did  suffer  so  greatly  might  complete 
its  .work,  and  the  spiritual  truths  of  Christianity,  so 
faintly  held  and  rarely  proclaimed  in  their  simple  form, 
might  be  entirely  lost  from  civiUzation.  This  danger 
also,  like  the  other,  became  extreme  with  the  coming  in 
of  the  Germans.  Christianity  had  obtained  such  a  hold 
upon  the  Roman  world  that  the  classical  paganism  was 
absorbed,  with  results  which  were  deplorable  certainly, 
even  if  unavoidable,  but  which  were  not  absolutely  fatal. 
But  would  not  a  new  deluge  of  religious  barbarism,  for- 
eign to  classical  ideas,  and  far  less  cultivated  in  other 
directions,  have  failed  to  gain  even  a  faint  conception  of 


128  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  higher  truth  and  have  destroyed  completely  all  un- 
derstanding of  the  rehgious  side  of  the  new  faith,  if  this 
had  not  been  embodied  and  encased  in  an  external  shell 
of  forms  and  doctrines  and  constitution  strongly  enough 
iixed  to  resist  the  attack?  The  very  paganizing  itself 
which  Christianity  had  undergone,  by  bringing  it  down 
nearer  to  the  level  on  which  the  Germans  stood,  was  a 
defence  against  further  paganizing.  The  German  conquest 
did  undoubtedly  have  some  further  corrupting  effect, 
but  that  it  did  not  have  a  greater  influence  and  actually 
complete  the  work  of  barbarization,  as  it  did  complete  it 
in  science  and  in  language,  is  due  to  the  profound  impres- 
sion which  the  church,  with  its  real  power,  its  gorgeous 
ceremonial,  and  its  authoritative  and  infallible  teaching 
made  upon  the  Germans.  That  the  church  was  so  well 
organized,  its  forms  and  ritual  so  well  settled,  and  its 
teaching  so  definite  and  uniform  when  the  invasions  fell 
upon  it,  was  what  saved  it  from  destruction  and  made 
it  a  great  reconstructive  force  in  the  new  order  of  things. 
This  work  of  reconstruction,  which  the  church  began 
even  while  the  destruction  of  the  old  world  was  still 
going  on,  must  be  regarded  as  a  very  large  part  of  the 
positive  work  which  the  monarchical  church  had  to  do. 
It  was  necessary  for  the  future  that  something  should  in- 
corporate the  Germans  into  the  ancient  civiUzation,  and 
make  them  its  continuators,  and  though  this  was  to  be 
a  long  and  almost  hopeless  labor,  it  was  absolutely  es- 
sential that  it  should  be  begun  at  once.  But  everything 
was  in  ruins  except  the  CathoHc  church.  That  was  or- 
ganized and  in  active  operation.  It  did  not  fall  or  lose 
vitahty  when  the  empire  fell.  The  overthrow  of  the  po- 
litical unity  only  bound  the  disunited  provinces  so  much 
the  more  closely  to  itself.  The  Germans  had  nothing  to 
put  in  its  place.  It  therefore  remained,  as  it  had  been,  a 
living  force  out  of  the  past,  continuing  the  ancient  world 
into  the  medieval.     But  without   this  strong  and  uni- 


THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  PAPACY         1 29 

versal  government  the  church  would  not  only  have  run 
great  risks  of  failing  to  impress  itself  upon  the  German 
barbarians,  but  it  could  never  have  created  in  them  that 
respect  for  its  power,  and  that  idea  of  its  indisputable 
authority  which  not  merely  kept  the  conqueror  within 
bounds,  but  carried  over  into  the  new  states  and  the  new 
conditions  so  many  of  the  results  which  antiquity  had 
reached.  In  every  separate  kingdom,  even  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon,  which  was  held  to  the  ancient  world  by  no  other 
bond,  the  priest  of  every  insignificant  hamlet  was  a  mem- 
ber of  an  independent  government  which  extended  far  be- 
yond the  boundaries  of  the  kingdom,  and  which  awakened 
awe  and  commanded  obedience  when  it  spoke  through 
him.  He  was  a  check  on  the  destructive  passions  of  the 
barbarian  lord  of  the  village,  and  taught  him  new  vir- 
tues and  new  ideas. 

Besides  the  papacy  there  grew  up  m  the  early  church 
another  institution  which  demands  our  attention  from 
its  wide  and  long-continued  influence — the  monastic  sys- 
tem. 

Monasticism  is  undoubtedly  ^f  oriental  origin,  and 
originates  in  oriental  ways  of  looking  at  life  as  itself  an 
evil  and  something  from  which  the  holy  man  must  es- 
cape as  completely  as  he  can,  even  if  possible  from  con- 
sciousness itself.^  When  the  changing  conception  of 
Christianity  had  introduced  into  the  church  ideas  of  sin 
and  holiness,  and  of  the  evils  of  life  not  wholly  unlike 
oriental  ideas  on  the  same  subjects,  the  ascetic  spirit, 
which  was  undoubtedly  present  in  Christianity  to  some 
extent  from  the  beginning,  received  a  strong  impulse  and 
extended  even  into  the  West,  where  the  natural  tenden- 
cies were  not  ascetic.  If  the  Christian  life  is  one  of  ob- 
servances, if  freedom  from  sin  is  to  be  obtained  by  pen- 

^  Something  of  an  idea  of  Ihe  early  monasticism  and  of  the  original  liter- 
ature relating  to  it  may  be  obtained  from  Kingsley's  llcrmils. 


130  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

ance  and  by  fleeing  from  temptations,  then  the  holiest 
life  will  be  secured  by  abandoning  the  world  entirely,  and 
either  alone,  in  solitude,  or  in  company  with  a  few  others 
like-minded,  giving  one's  self  wholly  up  to  penances,  and 
mortifications  of  the  flesh,  and  pious  ofiices.  The  more 
external  and  formal  the  religious  life  became,  the  stronger 
became  the  tendency  towards  the  ascetic  and  monastic 
ideal. 

This  was  not  the  only  thing,  however,  which  gave  mo- 
nasticism  its  disproportionate  influence  during  the  middle 
ages.  There  comes  at  times  to  nearly  every  man  a  long- 
ing for  a  life  of  quiet  contemplation,  in  which,  free  from 
all  cares  and  responsibilities  and  uncongenial  duties,  he 
may  give  himself  up  wholly  to  spiritual  meditation,  or 
to  his  favorite  intellectual  pursuits,  under  no  compulsion, 
however,  or  uncomfortable  sense  of  the  duty  of  literary 
production.  The  history  of  the  English  university  fel- 
lowships is  full  of  examples  of  the  influence  of  this  feel- 
ing, and  one  thinks  easily  of  more  than  one  case  in  mod- 
ern times,  outside  monasticism,  where  the  opportunities 
of  such  a  life  have  been  used  to  some  good  purpose. 
This  feeling  is  especially  strong  and  frequent  in  student 
days,  the  time  of  life  when  the  medieval  boy  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  monk,  and  when  in  natural  consequence 
monasticism  received  its  largest  reinforcements.  For  in 
the  middle  ages  there  was  no  other  opportunity  for  a 
life  of  this  sort.  The  monastery  gavfe  it  as  perfectly  as 
it  has  ever  been  given,  and  the  monastery  alone. 

In  still  another  way  monasticism  furnished  the  only 
possible  resort  in  a  perfectly  natural  and  permanent  need. 
For  the  disappointed  and  despairing,  for  the  broken- 
hearted, especially  among  women,  whose  hopes  had  been 
destroyed  or  whose  interest  in  life  seemed  unable  to  sur- 
vive the  loss  of  friends,  the  cloister  gave  a  refuge,  and 
often  a  recovery  to  helpful  interests  and  to  gentle  chari- 
ties, saving  a  bit  of  the  world's  good  force  from  total 


THE   FORMATION   OF   THE   PAPACY  I31 

loss.  The  Protestant  has  not  infrequently  lamented  the 
absence  in  his  system  of  any  natural  and  ready  resort,  in 
cases  of  this  kind,  and  the  consequent  waste  of  energy, 
nor  have  attempts  been  wanting  to  supply  the  lack. 

It  must  be  noticed,  also,  that  not  the  only  motive  of  a 
religious  sort  which  sustained  monasticism  was  as  selfish 
and  unchristian  as  the  desire  to  escape  from  all  duty  and 
all  contact  with  the  world,  and  from  all  knowledge  of  sin, 
in  order  to  make  sure  of  one's  own  safety  in  the  world  to 
come.  The  monastic  Hfe  was  very  often  conceived  of  as 
a  genuine  Christian  ministry,  of  wider  opportunity  than 
the  secular  priesthood,  and  entered  upon  and  lived  in 
earnest  Christian  spirit.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  also, 
that  spiritual  religion  and  genuine  Christianity  were  much 
more  common  in  the  medieval  monasteries  than  outside 
them,  and  that,  however  debased  the  monastic  life  may 
have  become  at  any  given  time  or  place,  there  was  through- 
out the  whole  period  a  constant  succession  of  thorough 
monastic  reformations  which  restored,  for  a  time  at  least, 
its  earlier  purity  and  produced  often  a  profound  impres- 
sion on  the  world  outside;  which  passed  on  indeed  from 
age  to  age  an  ideal  of  Christian  hving,  never  lowered  and 
never  forgotten  as  an  ide*l. 

It  is  certain,  however,  that  an  ascetic  monasticism  has 
its  strongest  roots  in  a  conception  of  life  and  duty  which 
is  essentially  medieval.  As  modern  forces  began  to  make 
themselves  felt  in  the  closing  centuries  of  the  middle  ages, 
not  only  did  its  power  over  society  as  a  whole  decline, 
but  the  system  itself  underwent  no  slight  modification. 
It  is  clearly  impossible  that  it  should  ever  hold  the  place 
or  exercise  the  influence  under  modern  conditions  which 
once  belonged  to  it. 

In  the  general  work  of  civilization,  in  addition  to  its 
work  in  the  line  of  religion,  the  influence  of  monasticism 
was  by  no  means  slight.  It  was  a  constant  proclamation, 
in  the  midst  of  a  barbarous  and  crude  and  warlike  society, 


132  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

of  the  duty  and  the  glory  of  another  sort  of  life,  of  the 
virtues  of  peace  and  self-sacrifice  and  poverty  and  labor. 
It  was  a  perpetual  reminder  that  some  things  supremely 
worth  having  were  not  to  be  gained  by  strife  or  self-asser- 
tion or  pride  of  place,  but  that  passive  virtues  and  gentle 
lives  might  be  full  of  power.  That  monasticism  reflected 
often  the  violent  impulses  and  brutal  methods  of  the 
time,  and  sank  frequently  to  the  general  level  of  super- 
stition around  it  is  not  to  be  denied.  It  furnished  often 
examples  of  anything  but  gentle  virtues  and  subdued 
passions.  But  notwithstanding  all  that  may  be  said  of 
its  corruption,  it  did  preserve  and  hold  up  to  general 
view  more  perfectly  than  anything  else,  or,  as  it  seems 
likely,  than  anything  else  could  have  done  in  such  a  time, 
the  conception  of  a  nobler  life  and  the  immense  value  of 
things  not  material. 

The  one  distinguishing  characteristic  of  Western  mo- 
nasticism, in  contrast  with  that  which  generally  prevailed 
in  the  East,  was  also  of  the  greatest  value  to  civilization. 
The  Western  organizing  and  legal  genius  seized  upon  the 
simple  idea  of  solitary  life  and  isolated  communities  which 
it  had  received  from  the  East,  and  constructed  great  mo- 
nastic orders,  covering  Europe  with  a  network  of  soci- 
eties bound  together  under  a  common  law  which  minutely 
regulated  the  daily  life.^  One  universal  and  regular  duty 
which  this  "rule"  placed  upon  the  monk  was  the  neces- 
.sity  of  being  constantly  employed.  Especially  to  be  em- 
phasized is  the  fact  that  this  was  work  for  the  sake  of 
work.  The  object  sought  was  not  so  much  what  world 
be  produced  by  the  labor  as  to  keep  the  body  and  mind 
so  constantly  occupied  that  temptations  could  find  no  ac- 
cess and  sin  would  therefore  be  escaped.     Consequently, 

^  A  translation  of  the  Rule  of  St.  Benedict,  the  chief  law  of  monastic 
conduct  until  the  rise  of  the  mendicant  orders  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
may  be  found  in  Select  Historical  Dociunents  of  the  Middle  Ages,  translated 
and  edited  by  Ernest  F.  Henderson  (Bohn's  Library),  pp.  274-314. 


THE    FORMATION    OF   THE   PAPACY  133 

it  was  a  matter  of  comparative  indifference  what  the  work 
was.  The  harder  and  more  painful  and  unattractive  to 
men  in  general  it  might  be,  so  much  the  better  for  the 
monk.  If  sufl&ciently  difficult,  the  element  of  penance  was 
added,  and  it  became  a  still  more  effectual  means  of  grace. 
In  this  way  the  monk  did  a  great  amount  of  extremely 
useful  work  which  no  one  else  would  have  undertaken. 
Especially  is  this  true  of  the  clearing  and  reclaiming  of 
land.  A  swamp  was  of  no  value.  It  was  a  source  of 
pestilence.  But  it  was  just  the  place  for  a  convent  to 
settle  because  it  made  hfe  especially  hard.  And  so  the 
monks  carried  in  earth  and  stone,  and  made  a  foundation, 
and  built  their  monastery,  and  then  set  to  work  to  dike 
and  drain  and  fill  up  the  swamp,  till  they  had  turned  it 
into  most  fertile  ploughland  and  the  pestilence  ceased. 
In  the  same  way  the  monk  laboriously  copied  manuscript 
after  manuscript  which  we  know  he  could  not  understand 
from  the  errors  in  copying  which  he  made.  But  it  kept 
him  at  work  and  so  we  have  the  copy  though  the  original 
may  have  perished. 

The  monk  taught  the  farmer  better  methods  of  agri- 
culture, and  he  preserved  something  of  mechanical  skill 
and  of  the  manufacturing  arts,  and  even  added  some  im- 
provements in  them  of  his  own.  St.  Theodulf's  plough 
and  St.  Dunstan's  anvil  were  not  inappropriately  adored 
as  holy  relics.  The  schools  were  in  his  hands.  He  kept 
alive  whatever  of  ancient  learning  remained,  and  modern 
science  owes  to  him  an  incalculable  debt  for  his  labors  at 
her  beginning.  In  childish  scrawls  he  passed  on  from 
generation  to  generation  the  methods  of  the  fine  arts 
until  genius  finally  awoke.  It  would  be  impossible  to  con- 
struct the  history  of  the  middle  ages  but  for  the  monastic 
chronicles  and  the  documents  which  the  monks  preserved. 
Their  manuals  of  devotion  are  still  in  use  in  the  churches 
of  every  name.  Literature  has  been  enriched  by  the 
works  of  their  imagination  in  chivalric  legend  and  the 


134  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Jives  of  the  miracle-working  saints,  and  the  Christian 
church  will  never  cease  to  sing  the  hymns  which  they 
composed.  In  its  worst  periods  monasticism  never  sank 
below  the  surrounding  level,  and  on  the  whole,  until 
stronger  forces  began  to  work,  it  was  a  leader  and  a 
guide. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   FRANKS   AND   CHARLEMAGNE 

In  the  account  of  the  German  conquest  which  was 
given  in  the  fourth  chapter  the  history  of  one  tribe — 
the  Franks — was  entirely  omitted.  The  results  of  their 
occupation  of  Gaul  were  so  important,  the  empire  which 
they  founded,  their  alhance  with  the  church,  their  legal 
notions  and  political  institutions  were  all  of  such  decisive 
influence  upon  the  future  that  their  history  deserves  a 
separate  treatment.  The  ideas  and  practices  of  the  Visi- 
goths and  of  the  Lombards  had  important  results  in  the 
national  history  of  the  lands  where  they  settled.  It 
would  be  necessary  to  investigate  Visigothic  law  in  order 
to  understand  the  details  of  Spanish  institutional  life. 
The  Anglo-Saxons  will  doubtless  ^xert  upon  the  final  po- 
litical history  of  the  world  an  influence  greater  than  that 
of  the  Franks,  if  it  be  not  already  greater.  But  it  was 
the  Franks  alone  of  all  the  German  tribes  who  became  a 
wide  power  in  the  general  history  of  the  middle  ages. 
It  is  to  them  that  the  political  inheritance  of  the  Roman 
Empire  passed,  to  them  came  the  honor  of  taking  up 
and  carrying  on,  roughly,  to  be  sure,  and  far  less  exten- 
sively and  effectively,  but  nevertheless  of  actually  carry- 
ing on  the  political  work  which  Rome  had  been  doing. 
They  alone  represent  that  unity  which  Rome  had  estab- 
lished, and  so  far  as  that  unity  was  maintained  at  all  as 
a  definite  fact,  it  is  the  Franks  who  maintained  it.  Its 
influence  was  undoubtedly  wider  than  theirs,  as  felt 
through  the  church  for  example,  and  yet,  without  the 

13s 


136  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

strong  reinforcement  which  the  empire  of  the  Franks 
brought  to  that  idea  of  unity,  it  would  in  all  probability 
have  disappeared  as  a  separate  political  force  before  the 
need  for  it  had  passed  away.^ 

Originally  a  very  loose  confederation — it  is  doubtful 
even  if  they  were  so  much  as  a  confederation — of  -small 
tribes  or  families  in  the  middle  and  lower  Rhine  valley, 
some  of  them  in  alliance  with  Rome  and  on  Roman  ter- 
ritory, the  Franks  hardly  attracted  even  a  passing  notice 
from  either  statesman  or  historian  during  the  time  when 
the  great  tribes  of  the  East  Germans  were  in  motion. 
It  is  only  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  century  that  their  career 
really  begins,  and  then,  as  so  often  in  similar  cases,  it  is 
the  genius  of  one  man,  a  great  leader,  which  creates  the 

*  The  great  importance  of  the  Prankish  state,  for  the  whole  poHtical 
and  institutional  future  of  the  Continent,  has  made  its  history  an  exceed- 
ingly interesting  field  of  study,  and  since  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury it  has  been  the  subject  of  a  most  minute  and  careful  scientific  investi- 
gation by  German  and  French  scholars,  who  have  examined  every  fact 
from  almost  every  conceivable  point  of  view.  There  has  been,  on  the  part 
of  the  majority  of  German  scholars,  an  apparently  unconscious  national 
bias  which  has  led  them  to  exaggerate  the  German  elements  in  this  state, 
perhaps  not  so  much  by  way  of  actual  exaggeration  as  by  slighting  or  dis- 
regarding the  Roman  contributions  to  the  common  whole.  This  tendency 
has  called  out  in  France — it  would  almost  seem  as  a  definite  protest  against 
it — a  most  remarkable  series  of  books,  by  M.  Fustel  de  Coulanges,  on  the 
history  of  the  Franks  to  the  end  of  the  Carolingian  period.  In  these  there 
is  to  be  found  as  marked,  and  apparently  a  more  conscious  and  deliberate 
exaggeration  in  the  opposite  direction,  by  minimizing  the  German  and 
emphasizing  the  Roman  influence  wherever  possible.  While  very  evident 
faults  of  process  make  every  conclusion  reached  by  M.  Fustel  subject  to 
question,  and  while  a  very  large  body  of  the  more  recent  scholars  of 
France,  beginning  with  M.  Monod,  have  refused  to  follow  his  lead  upon 
many  points,  his  books  are  still  exceedingly  interesting  and  stimulating, 
and  for  the  non-Continental  student  they  serve  to  restore  the  balance, 
somewhat  seriously  distorted  by  the  extreme  Germanizers,  and  to  emphasize 
that  most  fundamental  fact  that  the  new  society  was  formed  from  a  com- 
bination of  both  German  and  Roman  elements.  Upon  some  points,  as 
for  example  the  early  history  of  the  feudal  system,  M.  Fustel,  while  not 
differing  upon  any  important  detail  from  the  broader-minded  among  the 
German  investigators,  like  Georg  Waitz,  has,  however,  by  virtue  of  his 
keen  constructive  insight  put  the  process  of  growth  in  clearer  light  than 
ever  before. 


^  THE   FRANKS    AND    CHARLEMAGNE  I37 

nation.  Rising  out  of  an  obscurity  which  is  hardly  light- 
ened by  the  abundant  mythology  which  afterwards  col- 
lected about  him,  head  of  one  of  the  little  family  groups 
into  which  the  Franks  were  divided,  a  "county  king," 
Clovis — Hlodwig,  the  first  Louis  the  Grand — appears  as 
one  of  the  great  creative  spirits  who  give  a  new  direction 
to  the  currents  of  history.  The  main  traits  of  his  char- 
acter and  work  stand  out  clearly  enough  despite  the  leg- 
endary embellishments  which  have  naturally  been  added. 
Like  very  many  others  of  his  kind,  utterly  without  a  con- 
science, hesitating  at  no  means  for  the  accomplishment  of 
his  purpose,  he  brought  about,  by  a  succession  of  treasons 
and  murders,  the  consolidation  of  the  whole  Frankish 
stock  under  his  personal  rule.  But  even  before  this 
process  of  consolidation  was  undertaken,  he  had  begun 
to  extend  rapidly  the  territory  occupied  by  the  Franks. 
Syagrius,  the  son  of  a  former  Roman  governor,  had  gath- 
ered into  his  hands  the  remains  of  the  Roman  power 
north  of  the  Loire  and  ruled  a  considerable  territory 
there  which,  in  the  general  breaking  up  of  things,  had 
fallen  to  no  one  else,  nominally  under  the  emperor,  really 
as  a  little  independent  kingdom.  This  power  Clovis  over- 
came in  the  first  great  battle  of  his  history,  a.  d.  486,  and 
brought  under  the  Frankish  dominion. 

With  the  territory  occupied  by  the  Franks,  and  that 
which  was  gradually  added  as  a  result  of  this  victory, 
Clovis  possessed  the  larger  part  of  northeastern  Gaul. 
To  the  south  of  him  lay  the  two  German  kingdoms  of 
the  Burgundians  and  the  Visigoths.  With  the  power 
which  he  had  gained  in  the  north  he  turned  against  them. 
The  Burgundians  were  first  attacked,  and,  though  their 
kingdom  was  not  incorporated  in  that  of  the  Franks 
during  Clovis's  life,  it  was  made  tributary  and  compelled 
to  aid  the  further  extension  of  his  power.  A  few  years 
later  the  Visigoths  were  defeated  and  retired  to  Spain, 
leaving  the  lands  SDUth  of  the  Loire  to  Clovis,  except  a 


138  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION  I 

small  portion  in  the  southeast  which  Theodoric,  the  Os- 
trogothic  king  in  Italy,  Clevis's  more  powerful  contem- 
porary, forced  him  to  abandon. 

Clovis  had  thus  made  subject  to  himself  nearly  the 
whole  of  Roman  Gaul,  and  that,  too,  with  a  body  of 
Franks  originally  very  small — perhaps  not  more  than 
three  thousand  men — and  though  later  reinforced,  still 
never  very  large;  certainly  the  Romanized  provincials 
were  in  a  very  large  majority,  especially  south  of  the 
Loire.  It  might  seem  inevitable  that  the  Teutonic  in- 
stitutions, represented  by  so  small  a  proportion  of  the 
population,  would  be  overwhelmed  and  disappear.  It 
was  in  reality,  however,  to  be  the  lot  of  the  Franks,  un- 
consciously and  by  the  force  of  circumstances,  to  do  that 
work  for  the  future  which  Theodoric  had,  with  clearer 
vision,  seen  to  be  necessary — the  uniting  of  German  and 
Roman  into  a  common  whole.  But  if  this  was  to  be 
done,  it  was  vitally  necessary  that  the  Teutonic  side  of 
the  new  kingdom  should  be  kept  strong  enough  to  survive 
the  danger  of  Romanization  to  which  it  was  exposed. 

This  was  secured  as  a  result  of  two  very  important 
points  in  which  the  Frankish  conquest  differed  from  that 
made  by  any  other  German  people.  In  the  first  place, 
their  conquest  was  not  a  migration.  Instead  of  cutting 
themselves  off  completely  from  their  original  homes,  and 
settling  themselves  in  the  midst  of  a  much  more  numer- 
ous Roman  population,  with  only  scanty  and  accidental 
reinforcements  of  new  German  blood,  as  did  the  others, 
they  retained  permanently  their  original  German  land, 
and"  the  parts  of  northeastern  Gaul  where  the  Roman 
population  seems  to  have  disappeared  or  become  very 
small.  They  simply  spread  themselves  out  from  their 
original  lands,  retaining  these  permanently  as  a  constant 
source  of  fresh  German  hfe,  a  Teutonic  makeweight  to 
the  Roman  provinces  occupied. 

It  was  of  equal  importance,  in  the  second  place,  that 


THE   FRANKS   AND   CHARLEMAGNE  139 

step  by  step  as  their  conquests  spread  over  Roman  lands, 
they  extended  also,  in  the  opposite  direction,  into  Ger- 
many and  brought  in  peoples  who  had  not  been  perma- 
nently affected  by  Roman  influence.  These  German  con- 
quests Clovis  began  by  his  incorporation  of  the  Alemanni 
and  of  the  eastern  Franks,  and  they  were  still  further  ex- 
tended by  his  successors.  The  pure,  or  nearly  pure, 
Roman  lands  of  the  west  were  kept  in  balance,  in  their 
influence  on  the  new  state,  by  the  pure  German  lands  of 
the  east. 

These  facts  were  of  great  importance  in  more  ways 
than  one.  Not  merely  was  it  essential  to  the  formation 
of  the  civilization  of  the  future,  that  German  and  Roman 
elements  should  both  be  preserved,  and  brought  together 
in  such  a  way  that  they  should  unite  on  equal  terms  in  a 
new  common  whole,  but  also,  if  a  new  permanent  civili- 
zation was  to  be  constructed  on  the  foundation  of  the 
Frankish  kingdom,  it  was  absolutely  necessary  that  the 
invasions  should  cease.  So  long  as  every  new  attempt  to 
revive  order  and  settled  government  was  liable  to  be  de- 
feated by  a  new  invasion,  and  chaos  likely  to  be  introduced 
again,  no  steps  could  be  taken  towards  the  future.  This 
danger  could  be  removed  only  by  the  incorporation  of 
Germany — the  source  of  the  invasions — in  the  new  com- 
mon life  which  was  forming,  and  by  the  creation  of  a 
political  and  military  power  strong  enough  to  be  safe  from 
outside  attack. 

The  incorporation  of  Germany  was  not  finished  until 
the  days  of  Charlemagne,  but  it  was,  long  before  that, 
complete  enough  to  secure  the  Frankish  state  against 
such  an  attack  as  that  by  which  it  had  itself  overthrown 
the  kingdoms  of  the  Burgundians  and  the  Alemanni.  It 
also  very  early  became  strong  enough  not  to  fear  the 
danger  of  Roman  reaction  before  which  Vandal  and  Os- 
trogoth had  gone  down,  and  on  the  field  of  Tours  it  was 
able  to  turn  back  the  new  Mohammedan  invader  who 


140  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

had  destroyed  the  Visigothic  state.  It  was  this  great 
poHtical  and  military  power  which  the  Franks  built  up 
that  gave  them  the  opportunity  to  do  the  work  which 
every  other  German  tribe  failed  to  accomplish.  It  was 
because  they  kept  constantly  open  the  sources  of  Teu- 
tonic Hfe  and  vigor  that  they  were  able  to  use  the  oppor- 
tunity to  great  results. 

A  third  step  of  great  importance,  in  this  process  of 
union,  was  also  taken  by  Clovis.  One  institution,  pro- 
duced in  the  ancient  world  before  the  Germans  entered 
it,  had  continued  with  vigorous  hfe  and  wide  influence, 
indeed,  with  slowly  increasing  power,  through  all  the 
changes  of  this  chaotic  period.  It  was  to  be  in  the  future 
a  still  greater  power  and  to  exert  an  influence  even  wider 
and  more  permanent  than  that  of  the  Franks.  It  was 
also  one  of  the  most  important  channels  through  which 
the  ancient  civilization  passed  over  into  the  new.  This 
was  the  Roman  church.  It  was  to  be  the  great  ecclesias- 
tical power  of  the  coming  time.  It  was,  therefore,  a  most 
essential  question  whether  the  Franks,  who  were  to  grow 
on  their  side  into  the  great  political  power  of  the  future, 
should  do  so  in  alhance  with  this  other  power  or  in  oppo- 
sition to  it. 

The  other  Germans  who  entered  the  empire,  except  the 
Saxons,  were  Christians,  but  they  had  been  converted  to 
that  form  of  Christianity  which  is  known  as  Arianism. 
This  was  a  belief  Hke  that  which  is  now  called  Unitarian, 
which  had  grown  up  in  the  East  at  the  beginning  of  the 
fourth  century,  and  which  continued  to  be  a  cause  of  theo- 
logical strife  for  two  or  three  hundred  years.  Whatever 
may  be  one's  personal  belief  upon  the  theological  point, 
the  fact  which  condemns  Western  Arianism  in  the  sight 
of  history,  and  makes  its  fate  deserved,  is  that,  at  a  time 
when  there  was  the  utmost  need  that  the  shattered  frag- 
ments of  the  empire  should  be  held  together  in  some  way, 
and  when  disorganization  was  most  dangerous,  it  stood 


THE  FRANKS  AND  CHARLEMAGNE         141 

for  separation  and  local  independence.  It  furnished  no 
strong  bond  of  unity  on  the  religious  side,  as  did  the  Cath- 
olic faith,  to  replace  that  political  unity  which  was  fall- 
ing to  pieces.  Burgundian  and  Visigoth,  Vandal  and 
Ostrogoth  and  Lombard  had  no  common  religious  organ- 
ization and  recognized  no  primacy  in  the  bishop  of  Rome. 
They  did  indeed  tolerate  the  Cathohcism  of  their  Roman 
subjects,  and  did  not  break  off  the  connection  of  these 
with  the  Roman  church,  but  that  result  would  certainly 
have  followed  had  they  grown  into  strong  and  permanent 
states,  still  Arian  in  faith.  The  continued  life  of  these 
nations  would  have  meant  not  merely  the  political,  but 
also  the  religious,  disintegration  of  Europe.  The  unity 
of  the  future,  in  a  Christian  commonwealth  of  nations, 
was  at  stake  in  the  triumph  of  the  Roman  church  and 
the  Frankish  Empire. 

This  question  Clovis  settled,  not  long  after  the  begin- 
ning of  his  career,  by  his  conversion  to  Cathohc  Chris- 
tianity. That  he  ever  became  a  real  Christian  seems  as 
unlikely  as  that  Constantine  did,  and  the  two  cases  are 
in  many  ways  parallel.  That  political  considerations 
moved  him  we  can  only  guess,  but  they  seem  obvious, 
and  there  is  little  doubt  but  that  his  further  conquests 
in  Gaul  were  aided  by  the  fact  that  the  Franks  were  of 
the  same  faith  as  the  Roman  provincials,  while  the  Goths 
and  B-urgundians  whom  he  attacked  were  Arians.  That 
he  could  have  had  any  conception  of  the  more  remote 
consequences  of  his  act  is  impossible;  but,  as  we  have 
seen,  these  were  the  most  important  of  its  results.  That 
the  Frankish  Empire  could  have  been  formed  without 
this  alliance  is  probable.  It  is  possible,  also,  that  a 
common  church  organization  could  have  been  created  for 
all  its  parts,  but  it  would  have  been  impossible  for  such 
a  church  to  have  done  the  work — as  important  outside 
the  Frankish  bounds  as  within — which  the  Catholic 
church  accomplished. 


142  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

In  these  three  ways,  therefore,  the  work  of  Clovis  was 
of  creative  influence.  He  brought  together  the  Roman 
and  the  German  upon  equal  terms,  each  preserving  the 
sources  of  his  strength,  to  form  a  new  civilization.  He 
founded  a  political  power  which  was  to  unite  nearly  all 
the  continent  in  itself,  and  to  bring  the  period  of  the 
invasions  to  an  end.  He  established  a  close  alliance  be- 
tween the  two  great  controlling  forces  of  the  future,  the 
two  empires  which  continued  the  unity  which  Rome  had 
created,  the  political  empire  and  ths  ecclesiastical. 

It  may  seem  from  one  point  of  view  more  strange  that 
Roman  institutions  were  preserved  at  all  in  this  Prank- 
ish kingdom  than  that  they  threatened  to  supersede  the 
German.  The  Frankish  occupation  of  Gaul  was  a  con- 
quest. It  seems  to  have  been  more  distinctly  a  conquest 
than  most  of  the  other  German  migrations — a  definite 
change  of  government  and  so  presumptively  of  institu- 
tions. 

It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  government  was 
in  an  incomplete  stage  of  development  among  these  Ger- 
mans; if  well  advanced  in  some  directions  it  was  entirely 
wanting  in  others.  In  the  simpler  life  and  small  land  of 
their  earlier  history  few  difficult  problems  had  presented 
themselves,  and  these  had  been  met  by  simple  means. 
Now,  however,  with  the  necessity  of  ruling  a  wide  land 
and  a  large  population  of  diverse  race,  of  settling  com- 
plicated legal  questions,  and  of  providing  a  larger  rev- 
enue, there  was  a  demand  suddenly  put  upon  the  Ger- 
man state  for  an  enlargement  of  its  institutional  life  which 
no  rapidity  of  development  could  possibly  meet.  The 
result  was  natural.  Wherever  in  their  earlier  public  hfe 
the  Germans  had  developed  institutions  capable  of  appli- 
cation to  the  new  conditions,  these  were  continued  in  the 
new  states,  and  became  German  elements  in  the  final 
institutional  product.     An  extremely  important  example 


THE   FRANKS   AND   CHARLEMAGNE  I43 

of  this  is  the  system  of  public  courts.  Wherever  the  new 
demand  was  of  a  sort  which  could  not  be  met  by  any- 
thing which  they  already  possessed,  it  was  the  simplest, 
and  easiest,  indeed  the  only  possible  thing  to  do,  to  con- 
tinue in  operation  the  Roman  machinery  which  they  found 
existing.  So  the  administrative  system,  taxation,  legal 
and  extra  legal  customs  in  the  renting  of  lands,  remained 
Roman.  These  are  but  single  examples  on  either  side. 
The  number  might  be  largely  increased,  and  will  be,  in 
some  cases  of  detail,  as  we  proceed. 

One  peculiar  idea  of  the  Germans  must  also  be  taken 
account  of  here,  as  of  influence  in  preserving  Roman 
practices,  that  idea  which  is  known,  somewhat  techni- 
cally, as  the  "personality  of  the  law."  The  German  was 
supposed  to  preserve  of  right  his  native  tribal  law  under 
whatever  government  he  might  live.  Alemanni,  Burgun- 
dians,  and  Lombards,  brought  into  the  Frankish  king- 
dom and  subject  to  its  king,  kept  their  old  law  and  did 
not  come  under  the  Frankish.  New  laws  concerning 
public  affairs  might  be  made,  and  be  in  force  in  all  the 
subject  lands,  but  in  private  law,  in  matters  between 
man  and  man,  the  old  tribal  customary  law  was  still 
their  law.  This  principle  was  applied  also  to  the  Romans. 
The  Roman  law  continued  to  be  the  law  of  the  Roman 
subjects  of  these  German  states,  at  least  for  a  very  con- 
siderable time,  and  until  Roman  and  German  had  melted 
into  a  new  people  with  a  new  customary  law.  More  than 
one  of  these  German  states,  indeed,  issued  manuals  or 
summaries  of  the  Roman  law  for  the  use  of  their  subjects, 
as  they  had  done  of  their  own  German  law. 

Under  other  heads,  as  in  the  last  chapter  and  in  the 
chapter  on  feudalism,  are  to  be  seen  some  further  preserv- 
ative forces  of  great  value  which  kept  the  Roman  ele- 
ments in  use  until  they  became  organic  parts  of  a  new 
civiHzation.  Those  mentioned  here  will  serve  to  show 
how  it  was  that,  even  if  the  Franks  entered  as  a  con- 


144  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

quering  nation  and  consciously  put  a  new  government  in 
place  of  the  old,  large  portions  of  the  Roman  legal  and 
institutional  arrangements  remained  in  use. 

The  immediate  successors  of  Clovis  continued  his  work. 
At  one  time,  under  the  early  Merovingians,  the  subject 
territory  of  the  Frankish  state  almost  if  not  quite  touched 
the  Adriatic.  It  was  recognized  by  the  other  western 
states  as  the  strongest  of  them  all,  and  had  diplomatic 
relations  with  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  East  on  some- 
thing like  an  equal  footing. 

But  the  royal  Merovingian  race  was  passionate  and 
brutal.  Its  history  is  full  of  treasons  and  murders  and 
crimes  not  to  be  mentioned.  As  a  result  its  life  was 
speedily  exhausted,  and  it  sank,  physically  and  morally, 
with  fearful  rapidity,  its  princes  dying  like  old  men  at 
twenty  years  of  age,  and  its  power  passing  into  other 
hands. 

The  life  of  its  royal  family  was,  with  no  very  great 
exaggeration,  the  life  of  the  race.  This  was  also  violent 
and  savage.  Crimes  were  frequent.  The  first  appeal 
was  usually  to  brute  force.  Life  and  property  were  not 
secure,  and  the  government  seemed  to  have  small  power 
to  enforce  order.^     Ci\dl  war  raged  almost  without  ceas- 

*  Gregory  of  Tours,  in  his  History  of  the  Franks,  X,  27,  gives  us  an  inter- 
esting example  of  the  way  in  which  the  Frankish  government  sometimes 
attempted  to  repress  disorders.  After  telling  how  a  private  feud  arose  in 
Toumay,  and  how  Queen  Fredegonda,  having  tried  in  vain  to  f)ersuade 
the  parties  to  cease  their  quarrels  and  make  peace,  determined  at  last  to 
bring  them  to  order  with  arms,  he  says:  "She  invited,  in  fact,  these  three 
men  to  a  great  feast,  and  made  them  sit  together  upon  one  bench;  and 
when  the  feast  had  continued  a  long  time,  and  night  had  come,  and  the 
tables  had  been  taken  away,  as  the  custom  of  the  Franks  is,  the  guests  con- 
tinued sitting  on  the  benches  where  they  had  been  seated.  And  they  drank 
much  wine,  and  became  so  drunk  that  their  attendants  got  drunk  also,  and 
went  to  sleep  in  any  comer  of  the  house  where  they  happened  to  be.  Then 
men  with  three  axes,  as  directed  by  the  queen,  stationed  themselves  behind 
these  three  men,  and,  while  they  were  talking  with  one  another,  .  .  .  they 
were  cut  down."  Such  a  government  might  be  called  anarchy  tempered 
with  assassination. 


THE  FRANKS  AND  CHARLEMAGNE         1 45 

ing.  The  subject  nations  became  restless  and  by  degrees 
more  and  more  independent.  The  empire  of  the  Franks 
seemed  to  be  threatened  with  dissolution,  and  the  work 
which  Clovis  had  begun,  with  failure. 

Even  in  the  early  days  of  the  Merovingian  dynasty  a 
line  of  division  through  the  national  life  had  begun  to 
show  itself,  drawn  probably  at  first  by  dynastic  quarrels 
but  running  ever  deeper  as  time  went  on.  This  was  the 
difference  between  the  west — called  after  a  time  Neustria 
— set  off  into  a  separate  kingdom  in  the  Merovingian 
family  divisions,  and  the  eastern  kingdom — Austrasia.  In 
the  west  the  Franks  were  few  and  rapidly  becoming 
Romanized,  and  Roman  usages  prevailed.  The  east  was 
thoroughly  Teutonic. 

There  is  also  another  difference  to  be  noticed,  fully  as 
important  as  the  contrast  and  possible  hostility  of  thes-e 
two  incipient  nationahties.  Besides  tending  to  make  the 
king  more  powerful,  as  was  noticed  in  Chapter  V,  the  con- 
quest had  led  also,  as  a  secondary  result,  to  the  formation 
of  a  more  powerful  aristocracy  than  had  existed  before, 
through  the  possession  of  land  and  office — of  greater  and 
more  permanent  sources  of  wealth.  This  new  nobility 
began  at  once  to  attack  the  royal  power,  and  to  strive 
for  independence.  In  the  western  kingdom,  as  a  result 
of  the  Roman  influence — the  analogy  and  the  continued 
institutions  of  a  highly  centrahzed  government — the  royal 
power  was  strong.  In  the  east,  where  German  ideas  were 
prevalent,  the  strength  of  the  nobility  grew  more  rapidly. 

Out  of  these  two  sources  of  contention  grew  the  con- 
tinual civil  strifes  of  this  period.  They  seem  at  first 
sight  as  meaningless  for  history  as  the  battles  of  the  stone 
age.  But  taken  together  with  the  decay  of  the  Mero- 
vingian house,  they  gave  an  opportunity  for  the  family  of 
nobles,  who  were  destined  to  restore  the  royal  power  and 
to  reconstruct  the  Frankish  kingdom,  to  rise  into  a  posi- 
tion of  controlling  influence. 


146  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

This  family  had  its  house  possessions  in  Austrasia. 
In  that  kingdom,  in  the  reign  of  Dagobert  I,  the  last  of 
the  strong  Merovingian  kings,  there  were  two  powerful 
nobles,  intrusted  with  positions  of  great  importance  by 
the  king,  Pippin  of  Landen,  and  Arnulf,  bishop  of  Metz. 
After  the  death  of  Dagobert,  the  son  of  Pippin  made  a 
premature  attempt  to  seize  the  crown,  and  perished  with 
his  son,  and  the  male  line  of  Pippin  came  to  an  end. 
But  the  marriage  of  his  daughter  with  the  son  of  Arnulf 
united  the  possessions  and  power  of  the  two  families,  and 
the  son  of  this  marriage,  Pippin  of  Heristal,  to  use  the 
names  which  were  later  employed  to  distinguish  the  Pip- 
pins, soon  won  a  commanding  position  in  the  state, 
though  not  without  severe  struggles.  The  Merovingians 
still  retained  the  crown  as  kings  in  name,  but  the  real 
control  of  affairs  passed  into  the  hands  of  Pippin  and  of 
his  descendants,  the  Mayors  of  the  Palace. 

The  battle  of  Testry,  fought  in  687,  is  the  turning-point 
of  this  part  of  Prankish  history.  In  it  the  organized 
Austrasian  nobles  under  Pippin,  aided  by  some  of  the 
Neustrian,  triumphed  over  the  tendency  towards  a  cen- 
tralized government.  It  meant  that  those  elements  which 
were  really  more  Teutonic  were  still  to  retain  the  direction 
of  affairs  in  the  reunited  kingdom,  and  that  Romanizing 
influences,  which  bade  fair  to  split  the  Prankish  nation 
into  two  parts,  were  to  be  held  back  for  some  generations 
yet.  The  western  half  of  the  land  was  to  be  brought 
into  connection  once  more  with  the  sources  of  Teutonic 
life,  and  under  the  rule  of  a  thoroughly  German  family. 

This  battle  was  in  form  a  triumph  of  the  aristocracy 
over  the  royal  power.  It  was  as  a  representative  of  the 
nobles,  and  by  their  aid,  that  the  new  house,  the  Caro- 
lingian,  had  secured  its  power.  But  the  nobles  speedily 
found  that  they  had  only  succeeded  in  putting  a  strong 
and  determined  master  in  the  place  of  a  powerless  one. 
The  point  of  view  of  the  Carolingian  princes  was  changed 


THE  FRANKS  AND  CHARLEMAGNE         1 47 

at  once,  as  soon  as  they  were  in  a  position  to  rule  in  the 
name  of  the  Merovingian  king. 

The  task  before  them  was  by  no  means  an  easy  one. 
Not  merely  had  the  nobles  grown  strong  in  the  state,  but 
the  confusion  of  the  last  part  of  the  Merovingian  period 
had  enabled  many  of  them  to  assume  a  position  virtually 
independent  of  all  government  control.  These  were  the 
days  of  the  earliest  stage  of  feudalism,  and  the  political 
disorder — one  of  its  chief  causes — allowed  in  some  cases 
an  almost  complete  feudal  isolation.  A  considerable  part 
of  the  work  which  Pippin  of  Heristal,  and  his  son  Charles, 
called  Martel,  or  the  Hammer,  had  to  do  was  to  break 
the  power  of  these  local  "tyrants,"  as  Einhard  calls  them 
in  his  "Life  of  Charlemagne,"  and  so  to  make  the  royal 
power  more  real. 

But  also  the  outlying  provinces,  especially  where  these 
represented  a  nationality  once  independent,  were  in  very 
doubtful  obedience.  Aquitania,  Alemannia,  Thuringia, 
and  Bavaria  had  taken  advantage  of  the  dissensions 
among  the  Franks  to  resume  a  more  or  less  complete 
independence  under  dukes  of  their  own  race.  The  em- 
pire which  the  early  Merovingians  had  brought  together 
threatened  to  fall  to  pieces.  It  must  be  reconstructed, 
or  the  Franks  could  have  no  great  political  future.  The 
work  of  doing  this  was  a  long  one.  Charles  Martel 
hardly  more  than  began  it.  It  continued  through  the 
reign  of  his  son,  Pippin,  later  misnamed  the  Short,  and 
on  to  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Charlemagne. 

Still  another  great  task  fell  to  the  early  Carolingians. 
The  German  north — Frisians  and  Saxons — was  a  cease- 
less source  of  danger.  These  peoples  were  continually 
attacking  the  borders,  striving  to  force  their  way  into  the 
south,  the  last  wave  of  the  invasions  from  Germany  proper. 
Charles  Martel  and  Pippin  maintained  a  vigorous  defence, 
but  they  could  establish  no  permanent  conquests.  The 
Christian   missionaries,    mostly   Anglo-Saxons,    who   at- 


148  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

tempted  to  convert  them,  met  with  no  better  success, 
and  it  proved  the  great  labor  of  Charlemagne's  life  to 
incorporate  them  with  the  Roman  and  Christian  world. 

One  decisive  victory,  gained  by  Charles  Martel,  re- 
flected great  glory  on  his  family  and  helped  to  secure  its 
position.  The  Arab  invasion,  which  had  entered  Europe 
through  Spain,  in  711,  had  not  been  held  back  by  the 
Pyrenees.  The  Duke  of  Aquitania  was  not  strong  enough 
alone  to  resist  them,  and,  in  732,  an  army  of  them  had 
reached  the  neighborhood  of  the  Loire,  a  thousand  miles 
north  of  Gibraltar.  There,  in  the  battle  of  Tours  or 
Poitiers,  the  infantry  of  the  Franks  withstood  the  attacks 
of  the  Arab  horse,  and  turned  back  this  invasion.  Still 
other  attacks  of  theirs  had  to  be  met  in  the  south,  and 
they  held  some  parts  of  Septimania  and  the  Rhone  valley 
for  many  years,  but  they  were  never  again  able  to  pene- 
trate so  far  into  the  country,  and  the  danger  that  Europe 
would  be  overrun  by  Mohammedanism,  as  Asia  and  Africa 
had  been,  was  past,  so  far  at  least  as  concerns  the  attack 
from  the  west. 

The  time  of  Charles  Martel,  and  of  Pippin,  as  Mayor 
of  the  Palace,  was  a  time  of  reconstruction  for  the  Frank- 
ish  state.  The  power  of  the  central  government  was  re- 
established. The  nobles  were  brought  into  obedience, 
and  the  elements  of  dissolution  held  in  check.  The  sub- 
ject nationalities  were  compelled  to  give  up  the  indepen- 
dence which  they  were  resuming,  and  to  acknowledge  the 
supremacy  of  the  Franks  once  more.  The  church,  which 
had  suffered  with  the  rest  of  the  state,  and  almost  fallen 
apart,  was  made  to  feel  the  effects  of  the  change  also. 
The  life  and  morals  of  the  clergy  were  reformed.  The 
councils,  its  legislative  machinery,  were  used  to  serve 
public  ends,  and  the  vast  estates  of  land,  which  it  had 
gathered  into  its  hands,  were  made  to  contribute  to  the 
support  of  the  army.  Pippin  called  Boniface,  the  great 
Anglo-Saxon  missionary  among  the  Germans,  to  his  aid 


THE  FRANKS  AND  CHARLEMAGNE         1 49 

in  the  work  of  reconstruction,  and,  although  the  strong 
Carolingian  princes  never  gave  up  their  direct  control  of 
the  church,  the  result  was  to  give  the  papacy  a  greater 
influence  in  the  Frankish  church  than  it  had  had  before. 

Now  follows  a  series  of  events  which  opens  a  new  and 
greater  epoch  in  Frankish  history. 

The  kingdom  of  the  Lombards  in  Italy,  though  quiet 
for  long  intervals,  was  never  wholly  satisfied  with  its  in- 
complete occupation  of  that  country.  As  soon  as  an  am- 
bitious king  ascended  the  throne,  and  had  his  somewhat 
unruly  people  in  hand,  he  was  very  apt  to  begin  to  push 
^or  further  territory.  This  was  a  constant  menace  to  the 
papacy,  and  to  the  independence  of  the  little  state  of 
which  it  had  come  to  be  practically  the  sovereign.  The 
papal  state  was  not  strong  enough  to  insure  its  own  safety, 
though  it  had  defended  itself  with  great  skill.  Its  natural 
protector  would  have  been  the  emperor  at  Constantinople, 
still  nominal  sovereign  of  Rome  and  other  parts  of  Italy. 
But  Constantinople  was  far  awa}^,  and  the  emperor  had 
many  more  immediate  interests  which  demanded  his 
attention.  Besides  this,  the  points  of  dispute  between 
the  Eastern  church  and  the  Roman,  upon  the  worship  of 
images  and  other  topics,  which  were  one  day  to  make  a 
complete  and  hostile  separation  between  them,  had  al- 
ready begun  to  appear  and  to  create  ill  feeling.  The  ap- 
peal which  the  popes  made  for  protection  brought  them 
no  help,  and  they  had  only  one  recourse  left.  This  was 
to  the  restored  Frankish  kingdom,  the  strongest  political 
power  of  the  West. 

Gregory  II  and  Gregory  III  both  appealed  to  Charles 
Martel  to  come  to  their  assistance,  and  the  latter  sent  to 
him  the  keys  of  St.  Peter's  tomb.  But  Charles  did  not 
comply.  It  is  probable  that  he  had  still  too  serious  work 
at  home,  and  that  so  long  as  the  position  of  the  Arabs 
in  the  south  was  threatening,  and  plans  of  further  inva- 


150  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

sion  on  their  part  not  improbable,  he  could  not  afford 
to  engage  in  hostilities  with  the  Lombards. 

But  his  son  Pippin  felt  himself  in  a  more  secure  posi- 
tion. There  was  also,  on  his  side,  a  strong  reason  for 
a  close  alliance  with  the  papacy.  The  plan  which  the 
son  of  the  first  Pippin  had  attempted  to  carry  out,  before 
the  hold  of  his  family  on  the  state  was  secure  enough  to 
warrant  it,  could  now  be  taken  up  again.  The  Franks 
had  been  accustomed,  for  more  than  sixty  years,  to  see 
the  Merovingian  kings  excluded  from  all  real  government, 
and  all  the  duties  of  the  royal  office  performed  by  the 
Carolingian  princes.  Almost  all  the  nobles  were  now 
also  the  vassals  of  Pippin,  and  the  leaders  of  the  church 
would  support  him.  To  set  aside  the  Merovingian  fam- 
ily, and  put  the  Carolingian  on  the  throne,  would  seem 
far  less  revolutionary  at  this  time  than  it  had  one  hun- 
dred years  earlier.  Still  a  sort  of  religious  feeling  might 
attach  itself  to  the  old  royal  family,  and  Pippin  needed 
all  the  support  which  he  could  get.  Accordingly  the  first 
move  towards  the  alliance  came  from  him,  and  an  em- 
bassy to  Rome,  sent  with  the  consent  of  the  Franks, 
laid  before  the  pope  the  question  whether  the  condition 
of  things  was  a  good  one  where  he  who  bore  the  title  of 
king  was  without  any  real  power.  The  answer  was  a 
satisfactory  one,  and  with  the  sanction  of  this  high  re- 
ligious authority,  the  last  Merovingian  king  disappeared 
in  the  cloister.  Pippin  was  elected  king  by  the  nobles 
and  people,  raised  on  their  shields  after  the  old  German 
fashion,  and,  by  a  new  ceremony,  the  bishops  consecrated 
him  king  in  anointing  him  with  holy  oil.  This  took  place 
in  the  year  751. 

Almost  immediately  after  this  the  advance  of  the  Lom- 
bard king  became  so  threatening  that  the  pope  deter- 
mined to  go  in  person  to  beseech  the  new  king  of  the 
Franks  to  come  to  his  aid.  His  mission  was  successful. 
Pippin  went  back  with  him  to  Italy,  and  compelled  the 


THE   FRANKS   AND   CHARLEMAGNE  I51 

Lombards  to  abandon  their  conquests.  Two  years  later 
another  expedition  was  necessary,  as  the  Lombard  king 
was  threatening  Rome  again.  This  time,  in  755,  Pippin 
bestowed  on  the  pope  a  part  of  the  exarchate  of  Ravenna, 
which  he  forced  the  Lombards  to  give  up,  and  thus  added 
territory  on  the  Adriatic  to  that  around  Rome  of  which 
the  popes  had  already  made  themselves  the  virtual  sov- 
ereigns. The  wishes  of  the  emperor  at  Constantinople 
were  not  consulted  in  this  disposition  of  his  property, 
and,  without  any  regard  to  his  rights,  the  foundations  of 
the  temporal  principality  of  the  popes  were  securely  laid. 
These  events  were  of  as  wide  influence  upon  the  future 
of  the  Franks  as  upon  that  of  the  papacy.  They  drew 
still  closer  that  alliance  with  the  church  which  had  always 
been  a  characteristic  of  their  history.  They  opened  the 
way  to  a  new  conquest — that  of  Italy — of  vital  necessity 
in  their  consolidation  of  Europe;  and,  still  more  impor- 
tant, they  brought  them  into  direct  contact  with  Rome, 
and  so  made  likely  the  awakening  of  imperial  ambitions 
in  their  minds,  and  made  it  natural  for  others  to  associate 
with  them  those  ideas  of  a  revival  of  the  imperial  title 
in  the  west  which  had  already  begun  to  stir  in  Italy. ^ 

These  events  bring  us  to  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of 
Charles  the  Great — Charlemagne — in  768.  A  very  gen- 
eral opinion  has  ranked  him  among  the  greatest  political 
leaders  of  history.  A  less  favorable  judgment,  however, 
has  not  been  wanting,  and  it  will,  perhaps,  afford  us  the 
best  point  of  view  for  a  brief  sketch  of  his  reign  and  an 
understanding  of  his  place  in  history,  if  we  try  to  ascertain 
upon  what  grounds  such  high  rank  can  be  assigned  him.'^ 

It  is  necessary  to  remember,  however,  in  doing  so  that 

'  Bury,  Later  Roman  Empire,  vol.  II,  p.  443,  n.  i. 

^  See  the  collection  of  opinions  from  various  authors  in  Waitz,  Deutsche 
Verfassungsgeschichte,  III,  pp.  333-340.     His  own  conclusions  are  givei> 

ibid.,  pp.  327-331. 


152  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  original  sources  which  treat  of  his  reign  give  us  almost 
no  statement  of  his  motives  or  plans. ^  They  tell  us  what 
things  he  did,  but  give  us  scarcely  the  slightest  clew  to 
the  reason  why  he  did  them,  or  what  ultimate  purpose 
he  had  in  view.  It  is  necessary  to  infer  the  leading  ideas 
of  his  policy  from  what  he  did  and  what  he  left  undone. 
Such  inference  is  certainly  proper,  and  may  lead  to  sound 
conclusions,  but  it  must  always  lack  the  character  of 
proof,  and  will  seem  to  some  much  less  conclusive  than 
to  others.  To  myself,  the  theory  that  Charlemagne  was 
a  man  of  the  broadest  statesmanship  appears  to  explain 
the  facts  much  more  perfectly  than  any  other,  though 
one  must  certainly  hesitate  to  affirm  that  he  was  con- 
scious to  the  full  of  all  the  bearings  of  his  policy  which 
we  may  seem  to  detect. 

But  such  a  consciousness  is  not  necessary;  indeed,  it 
never  exists.  The  statesman  is  a  man  who  sees  the  needs 
of  his  own  time,  the  immediate  dangers  to  which  society 
is  exposed,  the  next  step  which  may  be  taken  in  advance, 
and,  seeing  this  work  which  is  to  be  done,  sees  also  how 
to  do  it,  knows  what  means  the  conditions  of  the  time  will 
allow  him  to  employ,  and  how  to  work  out  the  needed 
result  with  the  materials  and  tools  which  he  must  use. 
The  ultimate  historical  results  of  his  work,  and  even  the 
deeper  currents  of  the  age,  he  cannot  see.  But  if  he 
truly  realizes  the  needs  and  opportunities  of  his  time, 
which  these  deepest  currents  have  created,  he  does  un- 
derstand them,  though  he  does  not  know  it,  and  he  works 
unconsciously  in  harmony  with  them. 

Our  question,  then,  is  this:  Were  the  things  which 
Charlemagne  did  wisely  adapted  to  meet  the  needs  and 
danger  of  the  time,  and  to  lead  the  way  to  a  better  future? 
Did  he  do  the  things  which  a  great  statesman  ought  to 
have  done  if  he  had  realized  the  task  demanded  of  him? 

*  Einhard's — Eginhard's — Life  of  Charlemagne  is  easily  accessible  in  vari- 
ous translations. 


THE  FRANKS  AND  CHARLEMAGNE         1 53 

To  answer  this  question  we  must  first  determine,  as 
we  now  look  back  upon  the  age,  what  the  things  were 
which  most  of  all  needed  to  be  done  for  the  secure  un- 
folding of  civilization.  This  is  not  difficult  to  do.  The 
ultimate  outcome  of  the  middle  ages  was  to  be,  as  was 
said  at  the  beginning  of  our  study,  a  new  civilization 
based  upon  that  of  the  classic  nations,  with  the  new 
Teutonic  race  as  its  active  agent.  To  bring  about  a 
condition  of  things  which  would  allow  such  a  civilization 
to  arise,  three  things  must  be  accomplished  in  the  po- 
litical world.  In  the  first  place,  the  invasions  must  be 
brought  to  an  end.  No  secure  and  productive  civiliza- 
tion would  be  possible  so  long  as  everything  was  likely 
to  be  thrown  back  into  confusion  by  a  new  settlement  of 
barbarians  who  must  be  absorbed  and  civilized.  In  the 
second  place,  the  Christian  nations  of  Europe  must  be 
held  together  in  a  common  whole,  in  order  that  the  unity, 
which  Rome  had  established,  and  which  is  the  foundation 
of  Christendom,  might  be  preserved.  Finally,  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  state  must  be  strong  enough  to  keep 
order  and  to  hold  in  check  anarchy  and  the  brute  pas- 
sions, for  safety  of  person  and  property  is  indispensable 
to  any  advancing  civilization.  All  these  were  secured  in 
some  way  before  modern  history  opened.  Had  it  been 
possible  to  secure  them  permanently  in  the  ninth  century 
it  might  have  saved  the  world  some  centuries  of  time. 

We  have,  then,  these  three  things  which  the  statesman 
of  Charlemagne's  age,  if  he  had  been  gifted  with  the 
power  to  read  his  own  time  and  to  see  into  the  future, 
would  have  endeavored  to  accomplish— to  guard  his  em- 
pire against  future  invasion,  to  consolidate  Christian  Eu- 
rope, and  to  establish  a  strong  central  government,  pre- 
serving order  throughout  the  whole. 

In  taking  up  for  examination  the  conquests  which  wera 
made  by  Charlemagne,  it  seems  impossible  to  believe  that 
they  were  dictated  by  any  other  motive  than  the  desire 


154  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

to  render  permanent  the  power  which  the  Franks  had 
established.  That  his  leading  motive  was  ambition,  the 
passion  of  conquering  for  the  sake  of  conquering,  appears 
entirely  irreconcilable  with  the  facts.  If  Charlemagne 
had  looked  about  him  to  ascertain  from  what  sources 
new  invasions  might  come  to  endanger  the  Prankish 
state,  guided  also  by  the  experience  of  the  past,  so  far 
as  he  would  know  its  history  at  all  in  detail,  he  would 
have  been  likely  to  conclude  that  there  were  two  and 
only  two  sources  of  danger,  the  Arabs  of  Spain  and  the 
Saxons  of  northern  Germany. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  was  no  danger  now  to  be 
feared  from  the  Arabs.  They  were  at  strife  among  them- 
selves, and  in  no  position  to  undertake  further  conquests, 
as  they  had  been  in  the  past,  and  would  be  again  in  the 
near  future.  Very  possibly  this  fact  explains  why  Charle- 
magne pushed  his  conquests  no  farther  than  he  did  in 
that  direction,  but  satisfied  himself  with  a  few  campaigns 
and  a  little  strip  of  territory  in  northeastern  Spain. 

The  Saxons  were  a  very  different  enemy.  For  more 
than  a  hundred  years  they  had  kept  up  almost  constant 
warfare  on  the  Frankish  borders,  as  earlier  still  the  Ger- 
mans had  along  the  Roman  frontiers.  If  any  new  Ger- 
man invasion  was  to  repeat  the  history  of  the  earlier 
one,  it  was  from  them  that  it  must  come.  Charlemagne 
certainly  acted  as  if  he  realized  this  fact.  They  were  a 
stubborn  foe,  but  his  determination  was  more  stubborn 
still.  There  was  apparently  far  less  to  be  gained  from 
them  than  from  Spain.  They  were  poor  and  uncivilized. 
Their  land  was  a  cold  and  hard  wilderness;  indeed,  for 
purposes  of  mere  conquest,  it  would  seem  as  if  he  could 
have  gone  in  no  other  direction  so  difficult  and  so  little 
remunerative.  But  he  made  their  subjugation  the  con- 
stant business  of  thirty  years.  He  led  his  army  into  their 
land,  compelled  them  to  submit  and  to  become  Chris- 
tians in  name,  and  established  ofiQcers  and  regulations  for 


THE  FRANKS  AND  CHARLEMAGNE         155 

their  government.  But  hardly  had  he  turned  his  back 
when  his  work  was  all  undone,  Christianity  thrown  off, 
and  his  officers  driven  out.  With  infinite  patience  he 
did  the  work  over  and  over  again,  generally  with  wise 
measures,  sometimes  with  unwise,  as  in  the  massacre  of 
Verden,  but  in  the  end  he  succeeded.  They  acknowl- 
edged his  superiority,  submitted  to  his  government,  and 
accepted  Christianity.  In  no  very  long  time  the  teach- 
ings of  the  missionaries  had  replaced  their  compulsory 
faith  with  a  more  genuine  Christianity,  and  within  a 
few  generations  they  looked  upon  him  as  the  founder, 
rather  than  the  destroyer,  of  their  national  existence, 
and  reckoned  him  among  the  great  apostles  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion.  Their  incorporation  in  the  Roman  Chris- 
tian system  of  things  was  complete,  and  the  invasions 
were  over  forever.  The  Hungarians  were  to  make  dev- 
astating inroads,  and  the  Northmen  conquered  England 
and  made  some  settlements  on  the  mainland,  but  within 
the  limits  of  Charlemagne's  empire  no  more  new  and 
independent  states  could  be  founded  by  armies  of  invad- 
ing barbarians. 

In  the  way  of  consolidation,  Charlemagne  had  but  little 
more  to  do  than  to  put  the  finishing  touches  upon  a  proc- 
ess long  going  on  and  almost  completed  before  his  day. 
Central  and  southern  Germany,  and  the  Lombard  state, 
and  the  fringe  of  Greek  territory  of  which  he  took  pos- 
session, were  already  marked  out  for  Prankish  occupa- 
tion before  his  reign  began,  and  in  no  direction,  except 
against  the  Saxons,  were  his  conquests  pushed  farther 
than  to  give  him  security  from  attack,  as  against  the 
Slavs  and  Danes,  and  in  southern  Italy,  or  to  connect 
his  territories  with  one  another  and  round  them  into  a 
compact  whole,  as  in  the  Danube  valley. 

Of  the  importance  of  this  part  of  his  work  for  the  fu- 
ture, and  of  the  way  in  which  it  continued  the  work  of 
Rome,  he  could  have  had  no  conception.     What  he  was 


156  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

striving  to  do  was  to  render  this  Prankish  empire  secure 
and  permanent.  But  he  did  bring  together,  into  a  com- 
mon pohtical  union,  nearly  all  the  peoples  which  were  to 
form  the  great  nations  of  the  future,  and  those  which  lay- 
outside  his  immediate  rule  seem  also  to  have  looked  upon 
him  as  in  some  direct  way  their  head.^ 

Finally,  in  no  part  of  his  work  does  the  political  ge- 
nius of  Charlemagne  appear  so  evident  as  in  the  measures 
which  he  adopted  to  strengthen  the  power  of  the  cen- 
tral government.  It  had  been  the  great  weakness  of  all 
the  German  governments  of  earher  generations  that  they 
did  not  make  their  power  felt  and  obeyed  in  every  local- 
ity in  the  state.  The  result  had  been  disorder  and  con- 
fusion and  the  growth  of  narrowing  local  interests  in  the 
place  of  general  and  national  ones.  Charlemagne's  task, 
as  it  presented  itself  to  him,  would  very  likely  have 
seemed  to  be  to  secure  obedience  and  order,  but  if  this 
could  have  been  done,  if  a  thoroughly  centralized  govern- 
ment could  have  been  established  and  made  permanent, 
it  would  have  meant  also  the  union  of  the  various  sub- 
ject peoples  into  a  common  nationality,  and  a  rapidly 
advancing  civilization. 

The  chief  executive  officer  of  the  early  Frankish  state 
was  the  count — the  graf — administering  in  the  name  of 
the  king  a  subdivision  of  the  state,  the  county.  After 
the  conquest  this  office  had  been  very  considerably  de- 
veloped under  the  Roman  influence,  and  its  duties  wid- 
ened, especially  upon  the  judicial  side,  and  it  came  to 
be  theoretically  an  executive,  military,  and  judicial  office, 
representing  the  king  and  not  ill  adapted  to  bring  the 
central  government  into  contact  with  all  parts  of  the 
kingdom.  But  it  was  natural  to  choose  for  the  office 
some  large  landholder  of  the  county,  who  would  have 
local  interests  and  local  ambitions,  and,  though  the  Mer- 
ovingian kings  seem  to  have  recognized  the  danger  of 

^  See  Einhard's  Life  of  Charlemagne,  chap.  XVT. 


THE  FRANKS  AND  CHARLEMAGNE         1 57 

this,  a'-.d  to  some  extent  to  have  sought  to  avoid  it,  the 
nobles,  whose  interests  lay  in  the  opposite  direction,  were 
in  the  main  successful  in  forcing  this  policy  upon  them. 
It  is  evident  that  the  prerogatives  of  the  count's  office, 
the  local  exercise  of  sovereignty,  would  be  of  great  ad- 
vantage to  the  noble  in  building  up  a  principality  of  his 
own,  and  they  were  very  commonly  used  for  this  purpose, 
even  to  the  extent  of  forcing  the  free  landholders  of  the 
district  into  dependent  or  vassal  relations  to  the  count. 
This  turning  of  the  office  into  a  local  power  greatly  im- 
paired its  value  as  an  instrument  of  the  general  govern- 
ment, and  there  was  imperative  need  of  reformation  at 
this  point  if  the  state  was  really  to  control  its  subjects. 

Charlemagne  made  a  most  vigorous  effort  to  force  the 
counts  to  be  faithful  to  their  duties  as  agents  of  his  gov- 
ernment, and  to  cease  the  abuse  of  their  powers  for  pri- 
vate ends.  He  certainly  did  bring  about  a  great  change 
in  these  respects,  but  that  his  success  was  not  so  great 
as  he  wished  is  evident  from  the  frequent  denunciations 
in  his  laws  of  the  local  usurpation  of  power.  Even  if  his 
success  had  been  complete,  the  experience  of  the  past 
would  show  that  there  was  here  a  constant  danger  to 
be  guarded  against  and  that  the  state  needed  some  more 
efficient  means  of  overseeing  the  counts  and  of  holding 
them  strictly  to  their  duties.  The  practical  statesman- 
ship .of  Charlemagne  seems  clear  in  the  arrangement  which 
he  devised  for  this  purpose. 

Like  almost  every  other  case  of  the  making  of  new  in- 
stitutions in  history,  it  was  the  adaptation  of  an  earlier 
institution  to  a  new  and  wider  use.  Charlemagne  got 
the  suggestion  for  the  new  office  from  the  earlier  royal 
missi — missi  dominici — messengers  sent  out  by  the  king 
for  special  purposes,  the  inspection  of  the  royal  domain 
lands  for  example.  This  office  he  gradually  adapted  to 
the  new  purpose  he  had  in  mind  until,  apparently  by  802, 
it  had  become  a  most  effective  instrument  of  government. 


158  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

The  details  of  the  arrangement  vary  greatly  at  differ- 
ent times,  but  in  general  they  seem  to  have  been  like 
this:  The  empire  was  divided  into  large  districts,  or  cir- 
cuits, containing  a  considerable  number  of  counties.  To 
each  of  these  districts  missi  were  sent  annually,  usually 
two  in  number,  different  men  each  year,  one  a  high  ofi&cer 
of  the  church  and  the  other  a  layman  of  rank.  On  com- 
ing to  their  district  they  divided  it  into  subdistricts  ac- 
cording to  geographical  convenience,  each  containing  a 
number  of  counties.  In  each  of  these  subdivisions  they 
held  an  assembly  four  times  in  their  year  of  office — in 
January,  April,  July,  and  October.  To  this  assembly 
must  come  all  the  counts  and  bishops  of  the  subdistricts, 
all  the  subordinate  officers  of  the  counties  and  bishoprics, 
and  all  the  vassals  of  the  king.  Representatives  of  the 
freemen  of  the  territory  were  selected  to  report  upon  the 
conduct  of  affairs  and  to  inquire  into  abuses,  and  any  of 
the  inhabitants  might  enter  complaint  before  the  missi 
concerning  any  special  act  of  oppression.  In  this  way 
the  administration  of  the  count  and  of  the  bishop  were 
kept  under  close  watch,  and  accusations  of  injustice  or 
misuse  of  power  on  their  part  were  quickly  heard  by  the 
central  government.  The  missi  had  the  right  themselves 
to  hear  appeals,  to  correct  abuses,  and  to  punish  the  local 
officers  of  their  districts  for  disobedience  or  insubordi- 
nation. They  were  supposed  to  represent  the  king,  and 
to  have  the  rights  which  he  would  have  had  if  present  in 
person,  but  especially  important  cases  seem  to  have  been 
referred  directly  to  the  king  for  decision.  They  also  made 
a  tour  of  inspection  through  the  different  counties  and 
might  hold  courts  in  each  of  them.  At  the  close  of  their 
year  of  service  they  drew  up  written  reports  to  the  king 
of  the  state  of  things  in  their  circuits,  and  these  formed 
the  basis  of  instructions  to  the  new  missi  of  the  following 
year. 

Such  an  office  was  certainly  very  wisely  adapted  to 


THE  FRANKS  AND  CHARLEMAGNE         1 59 

meet  the  difficulties  of  the  time,  to  hold  the  local  officers 
faithful  to  their  public  duties,  and  to  bring  the  power  of 
central  government  into  direct  contact  with  every  local- 
ity, and  make  it  respected  and  obeyed.^  The  best  com- 
ment upon  its  purpose  and  usefulness  is  the  fact  that,  as 
the  power  of  the  general  government  grew  weaker  under 
the  successors  of  Charlemagne,  the  office  gradually  dis- 
appeared, leaving,  if  anything,  only  faint  traces  of  its  for- 
mer existence.^ 

For  the  defence  of  the  frontier — mark,  the  marches— 
the  office  of  graf  took  on  a  new  form,  which  developed  in 
time  into  a  new  feudal  rank — the  markgraf,  marchisiis, 
marquis.  To  the  markgraf  was  assigned  a  much  larger 
territory  than  to  the  ordinary  count,  and  he  was  allowed 
to  exercise  more  extensive  power.  In  this  same  period 
appeared  also  the  vicecomes — the  viscount — who  acted  as 
a  representative  of  the  count,  in  his  absence,  or  when  he 
held  more  than  one  county. 

Under  Charlemagne's  government  the  old  national  as- 
semblies with  legislative  rights  are  not  to  be  found.  As- 
semblies were  held  at  regular  intervals  which  were  like 
them  in  form,  but  if  there  is  anything  in  these  assembhes 
which  may  be  taken  to  represent  the  people,  it  had  no 
influence  upon  legislation.     Assemblies  of  the  nobles,  lay 

^  Under  the  Carolingians  the  oiEce  of  duke,  as  an  executive  and  military 
office  over  a  number  of  counties,  practically  disappeared,  and  the  title  was 
used  only  exceptionally.  The  reason  for  this  seems  to  have  been,  the  way 
in  which  the  ofBce  had  been  connected,  in  the  later  Merovingian  times,  with 
the  aspirations  for  national  independence  among  the  subject  peoples,  Ba- 
varians and  Aquitanians,  for  example,  where  it  had  allowed  the  develop- 
ment of  what  was  really  a  royal  power.  The  missi  in  Charlemagne's  gov- 
ernment served  the  same  purpose  that  the  dukes  might  have  done,  though 
in  a  much  better  way. 

''  Brunner  expressed  the  opinion  in  his  Entslchung  der  Schwiirgerichte  (1872) , 
p.  154,  that  the  itinerant  or  circuit  justices  of  England  (and  so  naturally  of 
the  United  States)  descended  from  the  missi  of  Charlemagne  through  the 
Normans.  The  connection  with  the  Carolingian  missi  through  the  ninth 
and  tenth  centuries  is  somewhat  difficult  to  prove  by  documentary  evidence, 
but  the  probability  of  such  a  relationship  is  very  great. 


l6o  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

and  ecclesiastic,  sometimes  acting  together,  seem  to  have 
had  a  consulting  influence  and  a  formal  right  of  consent, 
but  the  practical  legislative  right  was  apparently  exer- 
cised by  the  king,  as  would  naturally  be  the  case  in  a 
strong  government  growing  out  of  a  past  of  such  political 
uncertainty.^ 

^jBesides  the  institutions  of  government  given  special 
shape  by  Charlemagne,  two  other  facts  of  a  different 
sort,  but  quite  as  important,  indicate  the  character  of  his 
policy,  and  would  tend  to  produce  the  same  results — per- 
manence of  order  and  a  renewal  of  civilization.  They 
are  his  revival  of  schools  and  education  and  his  renewing 
of  the  title  of  emperor  of  Rome  in  the  West. 

Of  Charlemagne's  revival  of  schools  we  know  unfor- 
tunately too  Httle  to  reconstruct  his  general  plan  or  to 
determine  how  wide  his  purpose  was.^  We  know  there 
was  a  palace  school,  in  which  the  children  of  the  king 
were  taught  and  those  of  the  great  nobles  and  promising 
children  from  the  provinces,  and  where  boys  were  trained 
for  public  employment.  In  this  school  Alcuin  taught, 
who  had  been  educated  in  England,  and  we  know  that 
Charlemagne  sought  teachers  for  his  schools  wherever 
else  anything  of  learning  had  remained,  as  in  northern 
Italy.  We  know  also  that  schools  were  to  be  maintained 
by  the  monasteries  and  cathedral  churches,  which  would 
naturally  be  of  an  intermediate  grade,  and  we  suspect, 
from  the  regulations  for  his  own  diocese  of  a  bishop  who 
was  also  employed  as  a  royal  missus,  that  there  was  an 
intention,  or  desire  at  least,  of  estabUshing  free  elemen- 

*  Perhaps  no  part  of  Qiarlemagne's  political  activity  has  been  discussed 
with  such  varying  opinions  as  his  legislation.  If  to  be  a  great  lawgiver 
means  to  formulate  broad  principles  of  justice,  which  shall  be  capable  of 
wide  application  to  new  cases,  not  thought  of  at  the  time,  then  he  was  not 
a  great  lawgiver.  His  legislation  is  rather  a  series  of  special  laws  to  meet 
immediate  cases,  as  they  came  up,  and  covering  a  very  wide  range  of  m- 
terest,  but  it  was  not  creative  of  a  permanent  system  of  law. 

*  See  Mullinger,  Schools  of  Charles  the  Great;  and  West,  Alctun  and  the 
Rise  of  the  Christian  Schools. 


THE   FRANKS   AND   CHARLEMAGNE  l6l 

tary  public  schools  in  each  parish,  to  be  taught  by  the 
parish  priest.  This  would  be  a  very  wise  and  well-organ- 
ized system  for  the  times,  if  it  really  was  what  Char- 
lemagne had  in  mind,  and  if  it  could  have  been  carried 
into  effect. 

We  know  perhaps  more  as  to  the  results  which  fol- 
lowed Charlemagne's  revival  of  schools  than  we  do  as 
to  the  actual  details  of  his  educational  system.  The 
legal  documents,  letters,  and  writings  of  the  next  genera- 
tion show  a  very  decided  improvement  in  style  and  ac- 
curacy, and  this  improvement  was  never  lost.^  The 
schools  themselves,  in  places  at  least,  continued  to  flour- 
ish even  during  the  dissolution  of  his  empire,  as  they  had 
not  before,  and  his  efforts  for  education  may  clearly  be 
reckoned  as  the  first  step  towards  the  revival  of  learning. 

Some  of  the  original  sources  represent  that  the  act  of 
Pope  Leo  III,  in  placing  a  crown  upon  the  head  of  Char- 
lemagne as  he  was  praying  in  St.  Peter's  on  Christmas 
day  of  the  year  800,  and  proclaiming  him  emperor  of 
Rome,  was  a  surprise  to  him  and  not  acceptable. ^  But 
the  plan  of  reviving  the  empire  in  the  West  must  have 
been  under  discussion;  there  are  indications  that  it  had 
been  thought  of  before  the  beginning  of  Charlemagne's 
reign,  and  the  pope  would  hardly  have  ventured  upon 
such  a  step  unless  he  had  known  that  it  was  in  accor- 
dance with  the  general  idea  of  the  time.  Charlemagne 
may  have  been  surprised  at  the  time  chosen,  and  dis- 
pleased with  the  assumption  of  the  leading  part  in  the 
drama  by  the  pope,  but  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt 
that  he  had  determined  upon  taking  the  title  before  long. 
It  must  have  seemed  to  every  one  at  the  time  the  per- 

'  There  is  a  touch  of  the  genuine  spirit  of  the  Renaissance  to  be  seen  in 
the  case  of  the  monk  who  takes  advantage  of  a  pilgrimage  to  Italy  to  copy- 
inscriptions  with  exemplary  accuracy.  See  Wattenbach,  Geschichtsquellen, 
vol.  I,  pp.  173  and  280.     (Seventh  edition.) 

'  See  Bryce,  Holy  Roman  Empire,  chap.  V,  where  the  accounts  of  three 
annalists  are  translated. 


l62  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

fectly  natural  thing  to  do.  His  empire  corresponded  very 
nearly  with  the  western  half  of  the  Roman  Empire,  more 
nearly  than  anything  which  had  existed  since.  Men  had 
believed  all  along,  in  a  theoretical  way,  in  the  continuation 
of  the  Roman  Empire  and  in  the  overlordship  of  the  em- 
peror in  Constantinople  over  the  West  and  these  theories 
were  still  consciously  held.  Just  now  the  power  in  the 
East  was  in  the  hands  of  a  woman,  something  which  the 
people  of  the  West  regarded  as  especially  unworthy  and 
impossible.  The  time  was  favorable  for  a  renewal  of  the 
title  in  Rome,  the  man  was  at  hand,  the  empire  was 
undeniably  reconstructed  in  territory  and  in  strength. 
The  actors  in  the  event  may  not,  perhaps,  have  thought 
of  themselves  exactly  as  Romans,  but  they  unquestion- 
ably thought  of  the  empire  as  a  direct  and  unbroken  con- 
tinuation of  that  of  Augustus  and  Theodosius. 

To  Charlemagne  himself,  the  direct  gain  which  might 
come  from  a  revival  of  the  empire  may  have  been  as  im- 
portant a  consideration  as  the  glory  of  the  title  itself. 
The  Roman  Empire  meant,  above  all  things  else?».perma- 
nence  and  consolidation.  With  no  political  structure  of 
history  has  the  idea  of  eternal  endurance  so  connected  itself 
as  with  the  Roman  Empire.  This  feeling  was  not  yet 
entirely  extinct,  as  is  evident  from  the  way  in  which  this 
revival  was  thought  of  at  the  time  as  entirely  natural 
and  in  no  way  extraordinary.  It  would  be  a  great  help 
to  the  permanence  of  the  empire  of  the  Franks  if  the 
ideas  and  feelings  which  belonged  to  the  Roman  Empire 
could  be  identified  with  it.  Again,  the  only  government 
of  which  the  men  of  the  West  could  know  anything,  under 
which  the  diverse  nationalities,  which  had  been  brought 
together  by  the  conquests  of  the  Franks,  could  become 
equal  and  organic  parts  of  a  single  state,  was  the  Roman 
Empire.  Charlemagne  might  be  recognized  as  their  na- 
tional ruler  by  Franks  and  Lombards  and  Saxons  and 
Bavarians,  but  the  problem  of  his  day,  and  of  the  future, 


THE  FRANKS  AND  CHARLEMAGNE         1 63 

was  how  to  unite  these  all  together  into  a  single  whole, 
a  nevjr  homogeneous  nationality,  in  which  the  old  race 
line?  should  have  disappeared.  The  Roman  Empire 
might  do  this,  and  it  alone  could.  That  Charlemagne 
consciously  reasoned  about  the  matter  in  this  way  is 
hardly  possible.  It  is  altogether  probable,  however,  that 
he  did  believe  that  the  taking  of  the  title  would  be  of 
very  great  help  to  him  in  his  struggle  to  consolidate 
and  render  lasting  the  power  which  he  had  created. 

The  attempt  of  Charlemagne  was  a  failure.  His  reign 
was  not  long  enough  to  allow  such  a  unity  of  races,  and 
such  a  solidarity  of  law  and  government,  to  form  them- 
selves as  had  formed  under  Rome,  and  without  this  his 
work  could  not  be  permanent.  Even  if  his  own  life  could 
have  continued  through  the  whole  ninth  century,  it  is 
very  doubtful  whether  his  genius  would  have  been  suffi- 
cient to  hold  in  check  the  forces  of  separation  and  dis- 
order. They  certainly  were  too  strong  for  the  weaker 
men  who  succeeded  him,  and  his  empire  fell  apart  and 
the  strong  government  which  he  had  established  was 
overpowered. 

Some  of  the  special  things  which  he  accomphshed  were 
permanent  contributions  to  civilization,  like  the  conquest 
of  the  Saxons  and  the  revival  of  schools.  Many  of  his 
special  political  expedients  disappeared  with  the  strong 
government  which  they  had  helped  to  sustain,  as  may 
have  been  the  case  with  the  missi.  But  there  was  a  pro- 
found and  permanent  influence  of  the  empire  and  good 
government  oL-diarlemagne  upon  the  general  course  of 
history,  though  they  themselves  may  not  have  con- 
tinued.      / 

He  had  created  and  sustained  for  a  generation  a  really 
powerf ij,  central  government,  obeyed  and  respected  every- 
where, and  this  fact  was  not  forgotten  in  the  days  of 
feudal    confusion    and    anarchy    which    followed.     Men 


164  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

looked  back  to  it,  as  they  had  earKer  looked  back  upon 
the  Roman  Empire,  as  an  age  when  things  were  as  they 
ought  to  be — a  kind  of  golden  age,  when  most  marvel- 
lous deeds  were  done,  to  be  told  of  in  poetry  and  romance. 
The  ideal  of  a  strong  king  and  a  real  government  was  so 
deeply  impressed  upon  the  time  that  feudalism  was  never 
able  to  destroy  it,  as  logically  it  should  have  done,  but 
itself  always  retained  the  character  which  Charlemagne 
had  been  the  chief  one  to  give  it.  of  a  constitutional  or- 
ganization for  the  state,  exercising  its  powers  and  rights 
as  delegated  to  it,  when  strictly  interpreted,  and  in  the 
name  of  a  general  government  which  theoretically  must 
continue  to  exist. 

His  empire  also  brought  together  for  a  time  all  the 
Christian  nations  of  the  western  portion  of  the  Continent 
in  a  real  union.  The  unity  which  Rome  had  estabHshed 
had  been,  for  centuries  past,  merely  theoretical.  There 
was  no  objective  fact  corresponding  to  it.  The  suprem- 
acy of  the  emperor  at  Constantinople  over  the  whole  em- 
pire was  too  shadowy  to  be  of  any  real  value  in  main- 
taining even  the  idea  of  unity.  The  church  had  formed 
a  real  unity,  but  the  poKtical  world  had  none.  The  the- 
ory itself  would  soon  have  passed  out  of  the  minds  of 
men  if  it  had  never  taken  form  in  fact.  Charlemagne, 
if  we  may  say  so,  made  the  facts  conform  to  the  theory. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  period  of  most  complete  separa- 
tion, when  the  feudal  system  was  about  to  render  the 
existence  even  of  rtate  governments  practically  impossi- 
ble, and  to  divide  Europe  into  the  smallest  of  fragments, 
he  recreated,  for  a  generation  or  more,  the  Roman  unity 
as  an  actual  fact,  and  strengthened  the  behef  in  its  con- 
tinued existence,  as  the  ideal  poKtical  constitution  for 
the  world.  His  revival  of  the  empire  rendered  possible 
its  second  revival,  on  a  somewhat  different  basis,  by  the 
kings  of  Germany,  and  laid  the  foundation  for  that  ideal 
structure,  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  alongside  the  Holy 


THE  FRANKS  AND  CHARLEMAGNE         1 65 

Roman  Church — an  ideal  which  grew  more  and  more 
perfect  in  theory  as  the  actual  empire  dechned  in  power. 

But  if  the  empire  had  never  been  revived  a  second 
time  by  Otto  I,  and  if  the  theory  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire  had  never  been  developed,  the  real  unity  which 
Charlemagne  created  would  have  been  an  enormous  rein- 
forcement to  the  influence  of  the  church  in  holding  the 
nations  of  the  West  together  in  a  common  system,  and 
an  especially  decisive  aid  in  this  direction,  because  with 
its  strong  unity  it  cut  the  age  of  confusion  and  separa- 
tion in  half,  and  held  the  disintegrating  forces  of  the 
time  in  check  in  their  full  career. 

Of  still  further  significance  is  the  fact  that  Charle- 
magne represented,  even  more  completely  than  Theod- 
oric  or  any  other  of  his  predecessors  had  done,  the  union 
of  German  and  Roman  elements  into  a  common  whole. 
In  Charlemagne  personally  and  in  his  government  they 
are  manifestly  united,  not  as  two  distinct  and  separate 
sets  of  things  brought  together  consciously  and  with  in- 
k  tention,  and  held  together  by  an  artificial  arrangement, 
but  they  are  mingled  in  a  living  and  natural  union,  as 
if  no  one  were  conscious  of  any  difference  between  them. 
Within  a  short  time  at  least  after  his  death,  we  have 
evidence  in  language,  and  in  customary  law,  and  in  more 
or  less  clearly  felt  race  feeling,  that  the  same  sort  of  a 
union  had  taken  place  in  the  mass  of  the  people.  The 
German  had  not  been  raised  to  the  level  of  the  classical 
civiUzation.  The  knowledge  and  culture  lost  had  not 
been  recovered,  but  enormous  progress  towards  this  re- 
covery had  been  made  when  the  German  and  the  Roman 
had  melted  together  into  a  single  people,  and  begun  to 
develop  a  new  national  consciousness. 

The  unity,  which  Charlemagne  had  formed,  might  be 
broken  up,  the  empire  might  fall  again  into  abeyance,  the 
strong  government  disappear,  but  in  such  ways  as  have 
been  indicated,  his  work  was  permanent. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

AFTER    CHARLEMAGNE 

The  empire  of  Charlemagne  passed  at  first  into  the 
hands  of  his  son  Louis  and  its  formal  unity  was  pre- 
served. But  Louis  was  by  no  means  the  equal  of  his 
father  in  strength  and  decision,  and  the  control  of  af- 
fairs passed  by  degrees  out  of  his  hands  to  the  bishops 
and  the  great  nobles,  to  his  sons,  and  even  to  his  wife. 
The  elements  of  disunion,  repressed  by  Charlemagne,  be- 
gan to  reappear;  but  unity  suffered  less  in  his  reign  than 
the  efficiency  of  the  central  government,  which  con- 
stantly declined — the  missi  for  example  were  rendered 
less  effective  by  making  the  archbishop  permanently 
one  of  the  missi  for  his  archbishopric. 

On  the  death  of  Louis,  his  eldest  son,  Lothaire,  became 
emperor,  with  a  nominal  supremacy  over  his  two  broth- 
ers, who  had  received  subordinate  kingdoms.  A  civil 
war  between  the  brothers  resulted  in  the  treaty  of  Ver- 
dun, in  843,  a  rearrangement  of  territories  which  has 
probably  had  more  influence  on  later  times  than  any 
other  ever  made.  By  this  partition  Lothaire  retained 
the  title  of  emperor,  with  Italy  and  a  long,  narrow  strip 
of  land  connecting  Italy  with  the  North  Sea,  and  includ- 
ing the  rivers  Rhone  and  Rhine,  separating  in  this  way 
the  subkingdoms  of  his  two  brothers,  one  in  what  is 
now  Germany,  and  the  other  in  what  is  now  France,  and 
bringing  his  territory  through  its  whole  length  into  direct 
contact  with  theirs.  Nearly  or  quite  all  this  territory 
assigned  to  Lothaire  came  to  be  connected  at  a  later 

166 


AFTER  CHARLEMAGNE  167 

time  with  the  empire,  as  held  by  the  German  king,  but  it 
was  bound  to  Germany  by  only  a  very  loose  tie,  and  in 
it  easily  arose  the  semi-independent  and  finally  indepen- 
dent Httle  states  of  Europe,  Holland  and  Belgium,  and" 
Switzerland  and  Savoy,  while  over  other  fragments  of  it 
France  and  Germany  have  been  contending  through  nearly 
all  later  history. 

On  the  death  of  the  grandsons  of_Qi_arlemagn'i  their 
territories  were  still  further  divided,  and  the  double  proc- 
ess of  separation  and  of  the  destruction  of  the  central 
power  went  on  without  hindrance.  For  a  moment,  al- 
most at  the  end  of  the  Carolingian  period,  the  empire 
was  reunited  under  Charles  the  Fat,  but  he  was  entirely 
without  power  or  capacity,  and  after  a  few  years  he  was 
deposed  (887),  and  the  territorial  unity  of  the  empire  was 
finally  destroyed. 

We  call  this  the  fall  of  the  Carolingian  empire,  and  it 
was  so  in  one  sense,  but  the  term  is  unfortunate  here  as 
elsewhere  in  history,  because  it  is  apt  to  imply  more 
than  is  meant.  It  must  not  be  regarded  as  in  any  sense 
a  fall  or  decline  in  civilization.  It  was  more  like  a  re- 
turn to  conditions  which  had  prevailed  under  the  Mero- 
vingian kings.  These  conditions  had  been  dominated 
and  controlled  by  three  generations  of  remarkable  princes, 
who  had  held  in  check  successfully  the  worst  tendencies 
of  the  time.  Now,  when  the  government  passed  into  the 
hands  of  ordinary  men,  these  conditions  began  to  pre- 
vail again,  but  they  prevailed  with  a  difference.  That 
the  net  result  of  the  Carolingian  empire  had  been  a  great 
gain  has  been  made  e\ddent.  The  ideas  of  unity  and 
order  and  good  government  had  been  so  strengthened 
that  a  return  to  the  situation  of  things  in  Merovingian 
times  could  never  be  complete,  and  those  conditions 
could  never  be  so  dangerous  as  formerly.  The  great 
Carolingian  princes  had  been  compelled  in  one  respect. 


1 68  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

indeed,  to  recognize  and  continue  these  conditions.  They 
had  been  obhged,  in  order  to  accomplish  their  own  pur- 
poses, to  encourage  and  strengthen  the  growing  feudal 
•  institutions,  as  we  shall  see  later,  and  to  give  them  legal- 
ity. But  whatever  they  may  have  done  in  this  direc- 
tion was  far  more  than  balanced  by  the  vigor  with  which 
they  subordinated  these  institutions  to  the  state.  With- 
out their  aid  the  feudal  system  would  inevitably  have 
developed  as  it  did,  though  perhaps  less  rapidly.  But 
without  their  strong  control  of  the  feudal  powers  in  their 
formative  period  the  idea  that  these  powers  were  exer- 
cised under  the  superior  rights  of  the  general  govern- 
ment might  easily  have  disappeared,  as  it  actually  did 
here  and  there. 

We  are  to  regard  this  age,  then,  as  continuing  the 
Merovingian,  but  with  decided  gains  over  that  period. 
On  the  surface,  however,  its  most  characteristic  feature 
is  the  decline  of  the  powers  which  the  three  great  Caro^ 
lingians  had  built  up,  and  our  first  task  is  to  ascertain 
the  immediate  causes  of  this  dechne,  a  thing  not  difficult 
to  do.  It  is  not  possible  to  attribute  it,  as  we  are  per- 
haps at  first  tempted  to  do,  to  the  weakness  of  the  rulers. 
Some  of  them  were  certainly  men  of  inferior  ability,  men 
who  would  be  regarded  as  weak  sovereigns  even  to-day, 
when  in  most  countries  a  stupid  king  or  an  insane  one  is 
as  good  as  any,  or  even  better.  But  the  most  of  them 
seem  to  have  been  men  at  least  of  ordinary  ability.  It 
was  a  time,  however,  when  a  man  of  ordinary  ability 
could  not  be  master  of  the  situation.  A  king,  in  order 
really  to  govern  such  a  turbulent  society,  would  have 
required  the  extraordinary  genius  of  a  Charlemagne,  if 
not  something  more,  and  no  one  had  that.  The  family 
had  produced  about  as  many  generations  of  genius  as 
any  in  history,  and  it  was  rather  because  it  did  not  con- 
tinue to  do  this  than  because  it  sank  below  the  level  of 
average  men  that  it  proved  unequal  to  its  task. 


AFTER   CHARLEMAGNE  1 69 

Nor  can  the  cause  be  found  in  those  partitions  of  ter- 
ritory between  the  members  of  the  family  which  are  so 
frequent  during  the  period.  The  old  Frankish  notion  of 
equal  division  among  the  heirs  apparently  could  not  be 
shaken  off  by  the  Carolingians,  and  subdivision  followed 
subdivision  to  the  end  of  the  period.  This,  no  doubt, 
weakened  the  idea  of  unity,  and  occasionally  aided  the 
deeper  causes  of  separation,  but  it  must  not  be  regarded 
in  itself  as  a  very  efficient  force  in  that  direction.  Had 
the  general  conditions  been  more  favorable,  such  parti- 
tions might  have  gone  further  than  they  did  without 
serious  consequences,  and,  indeed,  they  might  have  been 
of  assistance  to  the  kings  in  maintaining  a  real  control 
of  affairs  by  reducing  the  size  of  the  territory  to  be  con- 
trolled. 

More  serious  than  these,  as  intensifying  the  general 
conditions  with  which  a  government  had  to  contend, 
were  the  severe  attacks  which  were  made  on  all  the 
boundaries  of  the  empire  during  this  age.  Saracens, 
Hungarians,  and  Northmen  were  trying  to  force  their 
way  in  from  every  direction.  In  the  Carohngian  period 
proper  the  most  dangerous  of  these  attacks  was  that  of 
the  Northmen.  Following  exactly  the  methods  of  the 
earlier  Saxons,  they  appeared  without  warning  upon  the 
coast  or  up  the  rivers  with  their  swift  boats,  collected 
what  plunder  they  could  in  a  sudden  raid  inland,  and 
were  off  before  resistance  could  be  organized.  The  great 
rivers  of  Gaul  opened  to  them  the  heart  of  the  country, 
and  the  distance  to  which  they  ascended  them  shows 
most  clearly  how  httle  general  organization  there  was, 
and  how  entirely  each  locality  was  thrown  upon  its  own 
resources  for  protection.  This  absence  of  a  general  sys- 
tem of  defence,  this  necessity  which  was  placed  upon 
each  locahty  of  looking  out  for  its  own  protection  in  the 
face  of  a  constantly  menacing  danger,  is  a  fact  of  pri- 
mary importance  at  this  time.     It  greatly  strengthened 


170  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

those  institutions  which  organized  the  means  of  private 
and  local  defence,  institutions  which  similar  conditions 
had  produced  in  earlier  times,  and  which  had  continued 
their  development  even  under  Charlemagne. 

With  this  fact — the  fact  that  these  institutions  had 
now  become  very  strong  and  grown  into  a  great  general 
organization,  the  feudal  system,  so  strong  that  it  was 
no  longer  possible  to  control  its  members  or  to  prevent 
their  exercise  of  royal  prerogatives — -we  have  reached 
the  deepest  and  most  effective  cause  of  the  fall  of  the 
Carolingian  power. 

The  feudal  system  was  itself  an  offspring  of  the  pre- 
vailing conditions  and  gave  expression  to  them.  Whether 
or  not  the  later  Carolingians  would  have  been  able  to 
maintain  an  effective  government  if  the  feudal  system 
had  not  been  in  the  way  to  prevent,  certain  it  is  that 
this  system  had  taken  its  beginning  in  a  time  when  from 
one  cause  or  another  an  effective  government  had  not 
been  maintained,  in  the  last  days  of  the  empire  and  in 
the  Merovingian  period.  Since  then  nothing  had  occurred 
to  check  its  development,  though  Charlemagne  had  been 
able  to  prevent  any  evil  results  from  it  in  his  own  time. 
It  had  now  reached  a  point  of  development  which  made 
it  in  itself  an  active  factor  in  the  state  independent  of 
the  conditions  which  had  brought  it  into  existence.  It 
had  established  itself  on  firm  foundations.  It  had  ab- 
sorbed to  some  extent  already,  and  was  absorbing  more 
and  more,  the  functions,  powers,  and  rights  of  the  cen- 
tral government.  It  had  produced  a  body  of  men  secure 
in  their  position,  able  to  dictate  terms  to  the  monarch 
at  critical  moments  as  the  price  of  their  assistance,^  and 

*  The  most  familiar  instance  of  this  is  the  famous  capitulary  of  Kiersy, 
obtained  from  Charles  the  Bald,  in  877.  This  was  not,  as  has  sometimes 
been  said,  the  legal  recognition  of  a  hereditary  right  to  benefices,  but  it 
was  an  agreement  on  the  part  of  the  king  to  recognize  such  a  right  for  the 
special  occasion,  showing,  however,  the  existence  of  a  strong  tendency  to 
turn  oflBces  and  fiefs  into  hereditary  possessions. 


AFTER   CHARLEMAGNE  171 

able  to  beat  off  the  attacks  of  the  Northmen  where  the 
state  failed  to  do  its  duty.  It  had  built  up,  in  a  word, 
little  principaUties  everywhere  which  usurped  for  the  lo- 
cality the  place  of  the  state  and  divided  the  territory 
into  small  fragments  tending  towards  complete  indepen- 
dence. 

So  while  the  difficulty  of  intercommunication  made  it 
hard  to  maintain  a  real  control  of  affairs  at  a  distance, 
and  while  the  ignorance  and  barbarism  of  the  time  made 
impossible  those  general  ideas  and  common  interests  and 
feelings  which  are  the  foundation  of  a  national  govern- 
ment, the  feudal  system  deprived  the  state  of  its  organs 
of  action.  Its  executive  offices,  its  judicial  system,  its 
legislation,  its  income,  and  its  army  all  passed  into  the 
hands  of  private  individuals,  and  were  made  use  of  by 
them,  theoretically,  as  representing  the  state,  but  in 
reality  beyond  its  control.  The  king  was  practically 
shut  up  to  whatever  power  the  feudal  lords  might  be 
willing  to  concede  to  him  at  the  moment. 

The  origin  of  this  system  and  the  state  of  things  re- 
sulting from  it  will  be  discussed  in  detail  in  the  next 
chapter.  Here  it  is  necessary  to  fix  in  mind  the  fact 
that  the  Carolingian  family,  which  had  done  not  a  little 
to  give  it  definite  form  and  position  in  the  state,  fell  its 
victim  and  lost  the  throne  because  they  could  no  longer 
control  their  owri~Vassals. 

But  the  declining  power  of  the  Carolingian  family, 
and  the  fact  that  even  in  the  small  states  into  which 
their  great  empire  had  separated  they  could  not  really 
govern,  is  not  the  only  fact  of  importance  which  this 
period  signifies  in  the  political  history  of  the  world.  It 
was  not  an  age  of  chaos  alone.  In  the  breaking  up  of  the 
Carolingian  empire  the  European  nations  as  they  exist  to- 
day first  took  shape. 

How  much  of  real  national  consciousness  there  was  in 
the  states  that  separated  from  one  another  at  this  time 


172  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

it  is  not  easy  to  say.  There  is  danger  that  we  may  read 
into  that  earlier  time,  when  it  could  hardly  have  existed, 
the  idea  of  national  feeling  which  we  now  have.  Cer- 
tainly patriotism  and  a  feehng  of  race  unity  and  of  na- 
tional pride  do  not  appear  as  positive  forces  in  history, 
whose  workings  can  be  clearly  traced,  till  near  the  end 
of  the  middle  ages.  There  is  evidence,  however,  that  there 
was  at  least  some  slight  national  consciousness  at  this  time; 
that  the  people  in  one  of  these  new  states  began  to  distin- 
guish themselves  from  those  in  another,  and,  however  much 
they  might  still  be  divided  within  the  state,  to  look  upon 
themselves  as  more  closely  related  to  one  another  than 
to  the  people  of  another  state.  The  new  languages  had 
begun  to  form  themselves — a  clear  proof  of  the  melting  of 
Romans  and  Germans  into  a  common  people — and  these 
would  help  to  form  the  idea  of  national  distinctions. 
Common  names  for  the  people  of  the  whole  state  seem 
to  have  come  into  use  in  this  period.  The  church  of 
each  state  had  its  own  national  organization,  and  this 
furnished  one  of  the  most  powerful  influences  of  the  age, 
both  in  the  formation  of  the  new  state  governments  and 
in  the  growth  of  a  real  national  unity. 

But  whatever  may  be  true  of  the  formation  of  a  na- 
tional consciousness  at  this  time — and  when  the  most  is 
said  it  must  have  been  very  faint — the  modern  nations 
did  secure  in  this  period  their  geographical  outlines  very 
much  as  they  exist  to-day,  and  separate  political  organi- 
zations were  formed,  corresponding  to  these  territories 
and  uniting  them— however  loosely — still  uniting  them 
into  a  single  state.  These  political  organizations  have 
developed  into  the  modern  governments,  and  within  the 
geographical  limits  thus  secured  the  feeling  of  national 
unity  and  patriotism  grew  up  in  the  course  of  time. 

It  was  in  Germany  that  the  Carolingian  family  was 
first  permanently  abandoned  for  a  national  dynasty. 
Arnulf,  who  was  the  last  Carolingian  who  really  ruled 


AFTER   CHARLEMAGNE  1 73 

in  Germany,  was  a  man  of  energy,  and  the  ten  years 
and  more  of  his  reign,  from  887  to  899,  was  a  continual 
struggle  against  the  Northmen  and  Slavs.  Against  these 
external  enemies  he  was  successful,  but  he  did  nothing 
to  prevent — in  some  cases  he  aided — the  growth  of  the 
local  feudal  dominions  which  were  as  serious  a  danger. 
After  him  came  a  dozen  years  of  minority  rule,  when 
naturally  the  local  powers  grew  rapidly,  and  the  devas- 
tating invasions  of  the  Hungarians,  which  began  within  a 
year  or  two  after  the  death  of  Arnulf,  strengthened  this 
tendency  by  increasing  the  confusion  and  insecurity  with 
which  the  general  government  could  not  cope. 

The  feudal  system  did  not  reach  its  maturity  quite  so 
early  in  Germany  as  in  France,  not  having  grown  up 
naturally  there  but  being  rather  introduced  from  with- 
out. But  the  conditions  which  favored  its  growth  were 
like  those  in  France,  and  the  results  in  the  end  were 
the  same.  The  general  insecurity  of  the  times,  the  con- 
stant need  of  protection,  the  weakness  or  the  distance 
of  the  central  government,  and  perhaps  the  lack  of  any 
strong  conception  of  a  national  unity,  enabled  the  strong 
man  of  the  locaHty  to  found  a  Httle  state  within  the 
state,  and  to  extend  his  power,  if  circumstances  especially 
favored  him,  over  a  large  territory. 

The  old  tribal  differences  which  still  existed  among  the 
Germans,  notwithstanding  all  the  efforts  of  the  Carohn- 
gians  to  obhterate  them,  came  to  the  aid  of  these  little 
substates — it  would  be  more  accurate  perhaps  to  say  that 
these  differences  were  tl^e  foundation  on  which  they  were 
first  built.  The  Carolingians  had  abolished  the  old  ducal 
ofl5ce  which  represented  a  tribal  royal  power,  and  they 
had  endeavored  to  prevent  any  continuance  of  the  tribal 
life  in  the  arrangements  which  they  made  for  local  gov- 
ernment. During  the  time  of  their  decline,  however,  the 
old  tribal  consciousness  had  begun  to  reassert  itself,  and 
the  ducal  office  to  reappear,  at  lirst  without  any  recogni- 


174  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

tion  or  legal  right,  but  as  existing  by  force  of  circum- 
stances and  by  common  consent. 

Aided  by  circumstances  of  this  sort,  a  family  having 
its  original  seat  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  Saxon  land, 
in  a  region  exposed  at  once  to  the  attacks  of  the  Danes 
and  of  the  Slavs,  had  gradually  extended  its  power,  by 
the  skill  of  its  leadership  and  the  bravery  of  its  defence, 
over  the  whole  tribe  of  the  Saxons,  and  finally  over  the 
Thuringians  also,  and  created  a  dominion  which,  under 
the  ducal  name,  was  really  a  little  kingdom.  Another 
family  in  Franconia — the  land  of  the  east  Franks — had 
risen  in  a  similar  way,  aided  by  the  favor  of  King  Arnulf, 
to  a  power  almost  as  great,  but  it  had  made  good  its  posi- 
tion only  after  a  severe  struggle  with  dangerous  rivals. 
In  Suabia  and  Bavaria  the  tribal  spirit  also  revived  and 
raised  local  leaders  to  the  position  of  practically  inde- 
pendent dukes.  The  feudal  system  was  spreading  very 
rapidly  throughout  Germany  at  this  time,  and  its  forms 
greatly  helped  on  the  rise  of  these  local  dynasties;  but 
it  is  important  to  notice,  as  has  been  suggested,  that 
these  little  states  into  which  the  east  Frankish  kingdom 
threatened  to  separate  at  the  moment  of  the  extinction 
of  the  Carolingian  family  there,  were  based  at  the  outset 
rather  on  the  old  tribal  differences  than  on  feudal  con- 
structions. 

It  was  the  influence  of  the  church  of  Germany — a 
united  organization,  finding  all  its  interests  involved  in 
the  continuance  of  a  united  political  government — com- 
bined perhaps  with  a  deep  impression  which  the  unity 
created  by  Charlemagne  had  made,  and  very  possibly 
also  aided  by  an  incipient  national  consciousness,  which 
prevented  this  threatened  separation  from  being  com- 
pletely realized,  and  formed  a  new  national  government 
in  the  place  of  the  one  which  had  disappeared. 

On  the  death  of  the  last  Carolingian,  an  assembly 
somewhat  national  in  character  came  together  to  choose 


AFTER   CHARLEMAGNE  1 75 

a  new  king.  They  turned  naturally  first  to  the  Saxon 
duke  Otto,  the  most  powerful  man  in  Germany,  but  he 
was  now  old  and  was  not  willing  to  undertake  the  bur- 
dens of  the  new  office.  By  his  influence  Konrad,  the 
duke  of  the  eastern  Franks,  was  elected  king.  This  elec- 
tion was  not  made  in  forgetfulness  of  the  rights  of  the 
Carolingians,  whose  representatives  were  still  to  be  found 
west  of  the  Rhine.  Their  claims  were  kept  in  mind,  and 
it  was  thought  indeed  to  be  something  in  favor  of  Kon- 
rad that  he  was  descended  from  a  daughter  of  Louis  the 
Pious.  But  there  seems  to  have  been  no  serious  move- 
ment in  favor  of  the  old  house,  nor  any  feeling  that  it 
could  adequately  meet  the  needs  and  serve  the  interests 
of  the  times. 

Konrad  was  a  brave  and  earnest  man  who  had  a  high 
conception  of  the  duties  and  rights  of  his  ofiice  and  strove 
manfully  to  realize  that  conception.  But  the  difficulties 
were  too  great  for  him  to  overcome.  He  did  not  have  in 
his  own  local  power,  and  in  the  tribe  of  the  Franks,  which 
must  be  his  main  reliance  in  estabhshing  a  real  govern- 
ment, strength  enough  to  force  the  other  local  and  tribal 
powers  into  obedience,  and  his  reign  was  a  failure  in  this 
respect.  It  is  told  us  that  at  his  death  he  recognized 
this  fact,  and  saw  that  if  a  national  government  was  to 
be  made  effective  it  could  be  done  only  by  his  great  rival 
whose  personal  power  was  so  much  stronger  than  his 
own",  by  the  duke  of  the  Saxons.  Following  his  advice,  the 
Germans  passed  over  the  Franconian  family  and  elected 
Henry  the  Saxon  king,  and  from  his  accession  in  918,  the 
process  of  forming  a  national  government  for  Germany 
really  begins. 

Of  this  national  government  Henry  hardly  more  than 
laid  the  foundation,  but  he  did  this  with  great  skill  and 
with  a  statesman's  recognition  of  the  things  that  were 
possible  in  the  circumstances.  He  brought  the  dukes  to 
a  formal  obedience  and  to  a  recognition  of  the  kingship, 


176  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

but  he  did  this  by  diplomatic  tact  rather  than  by  force 
of  arms,  and  he  left  to  them  almost  complete  and  inde- 
pendent local  control.  It  was  too  early  yet  to  break 
their  power  in  this  particular.  He  organised  the  national 
forces  for  a  most  successful  resistance  to  the  Hungarians, 
founded  many  fortified  posts  in  north  and  east  Germany 
which  grew  later  into  cities,  led  the  Saxons  on  rapidly 
in  the  hne  of  development  begun  for  them  by  Charle- 
magne, opened  again  the  struggle  with  the  Slavs  for  the 
valley  of  the  Elbe,  and  finally  drew  closer  the  alliance 
between  the  royal  power  which  was  forming  and  the 
church  which  could  give  it  so  great  assistance. 

It  was  by  no  means  the  least  of  his  successes  that  he 
secured  the  quiet  and  undisputed  succession  of  his  son 
Otto  to  the  throne.  Otto  does  not  seem  to  have  had  his 
father's  diplomatic  ability,  but  he  was  a  man  of  strong 
determination  and  quick  action,  and  he  built  rapidly  on 
the  foundations  which  his  father  had  laid.  The  dukes 
and  the  semi-independent  tribes  seem  to  have  recognized 
the  fact  that  it  was  a  life-and-death  struggle  for  them, 
and  they  broke  into  open  rebellion  almost  immediately 
after  his  accession.  The  victory  over  this  open  resis- 
tance, which  Otto  everywhere  gained,  enabled  him  to  go 
further  than  his  father  had  ventured.  He  deposed  the 
old  ducal  families  from  their  half-royal  position,  set  in 
their  place  devoted  friends  of  his  own,  and  made  the 
duke  once  more,  if  not  completely,  yet  more  nearly,  an 
officer  of  the  state.  Finally,  he  put  beside  the  duke  the 
Pfalzgraf,  or  palatine  count,  to  be  a  check  on  the  ducal 
power  and  to  administer  the  royal  domain  lands  scat- 
tered through^he  duchy,  and  so  not  merely  deprived  the 
duke  of  one  source  of  his  power  but  also  estabHshed  an 
important  means  of  direct  connection  between  the  cen- 
tral government  and  the  locaHty.  It  was  the  first  step, 
and  a  long  one,  towards  a  really  consolidated  govern- 
ment for  the  nation.     If  this  policy  could  have  been  con- 


AFTER   CHARLEMAGNE  1 77 

tinued  for  a  generation  or  two  without  interruption  the 
work  would  have  been  done  and  a  real  state  created 
corresponding  to  the  language  and  the  race.  But  this 
was  not  destined  to  be.  Hardly  was  Otto  master  of  things 
at  home  when  he  was  called  upon  to  go  to  Italy  and 
right  wrongs  which  had  been  committed  there,  and  he 
could  not  resist  the  temptation.  The  dream  of  the  em- 
pire still  lived  in  the  German  mind,  and  Otto  was  per- 
haps more  ready  to  go  than  the  Capetian  princes  of 
France  were  to  embrace  similar  opportunities  offered  to 
them,  because  his  power  at  home  was  so  much  greater 
than  theirs. 

In  Italy  no  one  of  the  local  powers  into  which  the 
country  had  separated,  there  as  everywhere  else  on  the 
fall  of  the  Carolingian  empire,  had  been  able  to  gain 
sufficient  strength  permanently  to  overcome  the  others, 
and  to  lay  the  foundation  of  a  united  government  as 
it  had  been  the  fortune  of  some  to  do  in  France  and  in 
Germany.  The  existence  of  the  papacy  at  the  head  of 
a  little  state  in  central  Italy,  strengthened  by  rights  of 
ecclesiastical  rule  which  extended  over  Europe,  had  fur- 
ther complicated  the  situation,  and  Italy  had  been  the 
scene  of  more  constant  civil  strife  than  the  other  coun- 
tries, and  with  far  less  meaning  or  result.  It  was  con- 
sequently very  easy  for  a  foreign  prince,  not  dependent 
upon  the  country  for  his  resources,  to  exact  at  least  a 
formal  acknowledgment  of  his  right  to  govern.  In  a  first 
expedition  Otto  compelled  a  recognition  of  his  right  to 
settle  disputed  points  and  assumed  the  title  of  King  of 
Lombardy.  In  a  second,  in  962,  he  was  crowned  em- 
peror of  Rome. 

This  might  seem  to  him,  and  to  the  men  of  his  time, 
though  it  was  not  done  apparently  without  some  oppo- 
sition in  Germany,  to  be  a  very  great  extension  of  his 
power  and  a  most  glorious  achievement  for  the  German 
nation,  but  it  was  in  reaUty  a  fatal  step  both  for  Ger- 


178  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

many  and  for  Italy.  By  this  step  it  was  finally  made 
impossible  to  organize  a  national  government  for  Italy; 
and  the  kings  of  Germany,  in  the  place  of  their  proper 
task,  the  consolidation  of  their  own  state,  were  given 
what  seemed  to  them  a  more  glorious  mission,  the  recon- 
struction of  the  Roman  Empire.  But  to  do  both  things, 
in  the  face  of  the  difficulties  which  each  presented, 
was  a  human  impossibility,  and  naturally  the  interest 
which  they  thought  to  be  the  smaller^ — the  German  na- 
tion— was  sacrificed  to  the  greater.  Things  were  allowed 
at  critical  periods  to  go  as  they  would,  and  the  promising 
beginning  of  a  national  unity  was  broken  into  a  hundred 
fragments. 

In  the  case  of  Italy  one  can  hardly  lament  the  failure 
of  the  Italian  people  to  form  a  truly  national  government 
as  he  does  that  of  the  Germans.  Had  such  a  government 
been  formed  it  would  undoubtedly  have  saved  the  Ital- 
ians much  political  misery  and  tyranny,  and  very  likely 
it  would  have  made  them  a  larger  and  a  stronger  state 
than  they  are  to-day.  But  if  it  had  been  done  either 
by  the  earlier  Lombard  kings  or  by  some  of  the  local 
nobles  at  the  fall  of  Charlemagne's  empire,  Italy  would 
probably  have  failed  of  the  pecuhar  glories  of  her  his- 
tory; the  stimulating  rivalries  of  the  little  municipal 
republics  in  the  latter  half  of  the  middle  ages  would  have 
been  lacking,  and  the  great  results  which  seem  to  be  in  such 
close  dependence  upon  these  would  have  occurred  more 
slowly,  and  very  possibly  in  some  other  part  of  Europe. 

In  France  the  new  family  which  was  to  take  the  place 
of  the  Carolingian  formed  its  power  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Paris.  From  an  unknown  ancestor  it  rose  into  promi- 
nence very  rapidly  in  the  ninth  century  by  the  qualities 
which  everywhere  gave  success  in  those  times. ^     Its  mem- 

1  The  later  tradition,  referred  to  by  Dante,  Purgatorio,  XX,  52,  that  the 
Capetians  were  descended  from  a  butcher  of  Paris,  has  no  historical  foun- 
dation, but  it  illustrates  in  a  striking  way  the  popular  recognition  of  the 


AFTER   CHARLEMAGNE  1 79 

bers  were  good  fighters  and  were  able  to  protect  their 
dependants.  Its  lands  rapidly  increased  until  they 
touched  the  Loire,  and  it  went  quickly  up  the  ladder 
of  feudal  rank  until  finally  a  duchy  was  formed  and  the 
head  of  the  family  became  duke  of  the  French.  No  other 
of  the  local  powers  which  had  formed  themselves  in 
France  was  as  strong  as  this  one,  though  it  was  not  rela- 
tively so  much  stronger  than  the  others  as  the  Saxon 
power  was  in  Germany. 

When  Charles  the  Fat  was  deposed,  the  first  attempt 
was  made  to  transfer  the  crown  to  the  new  family,  and 
Duke  Eudes,  or  Odo,  was  made  king  in  888.  But  he 
was  recognized  only  by  a  small  part  of  France,  and  a 
Carolingian  king  was  set  up  against  him.  For  one  hun- 
dred years  the  royal  title  passed  back  and  forth  between 
the  two  houses,  neither  having  a  secure  hold  upon  it, 
though  during  far  the  larger  part  of  the  century  the  Caro- 
lingians  were  the  recognized  kings.  Finally  Duke  Hugh 
the  Great  added  the  skill  of  the  statesman  and  diplo- 
matist to  the  warrior  skill  of  his  ancestors,  and  greatly 
strengthened  and  extended  the  influence  of  his  house. 
His  son,  Hugh  Capet,  was  elected  king  on  the  death  of 
the  Carolingian  Louis  V,  in  987,  and  though  Charles  of 
Lorraine,  who  continued  the  Carolingian  fine,  offered 
resistance,  he  was  able  to  gain  no  general  support,  and 
the  Capetian  family  secured  final  possession  of  the  throne. 

In  the  election  of  Hugh  Capet  it  is  probable  that  a 
conscious  national  feeling — a  reahzation  of  the  distinc- 
tion of  race  and  language — was  less  directly  a  factor  than 
in  the  corresponding  revolution  in  Germany.  But  the 
conditions  which  had  been  making  France  different  from 
Germany  were  the  conditions  which  had  undermined  the 
power  of  the  Carolingian  family  and  given  the  Capetian 

fact  .hat  men  from  the  lowest  station  were  founding  feudal  families  of  high 
rant  in  the  ninth  century  as  a  consequence  of  their  personal  bravery  and 
thei  •  skill  as  leaders. 


I  So  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

family  its  position  of  superiority,  and  the  substitution  of 
the  new  family  for  the  old  upon  the  throne  made  it  easy 
for  the  resulting  differences  to  intensify  and  perpetuate 
themselves.  France  was  becoming  thoroughly  feudal. 
It  was  the  native  land  of  the  feudal  system,  and  there 
that  system  had  developed  earliest  and  most  completely. 
This  new  feudalism  was  especially  strong  towards  the 
West.  The  Capetian  was  the  most  powerful  of  all  the 
feudal  families.  The  Carolingians  represented  an  old 
power  above  feudalism.  They  clung  closely  to  the  East, 
the  primitive  seat  of  their  power.  The  revolution  in 
France  meant  the  accession  to  power  of  the  new  and  ac- 
tive forces  which  were  to  shape  the  future,  in  place  of 
the  old  which  had  done  their  work,  and  one  of  the  most 
important  and  direct  results  of  their  action,  under  the 
native  dynasty  thus  placed  in  power,  was  by  degrees  the 
growth  of  a  national  consciousness,  from  the  slight  germ 
which  existed  at  the  beginning. 

The  real  power  which  the  first  Capetians  exercised  as 
kings  was,  however,  very  slight.  The  whole  of  France 
was  covered  with  feudal  dominions  like  the  duchy  of 
France,  some  of  them  as  strong,  if  not  stronger,  than  their 
own.  Normandy,  Champagne,  Burgundy,  and  Aquitaine 
were  only  the  largest  of  a  network  of  local  principalities 
which  occupied  the  whole  territory  and  shut  out  the  king 
from  all  direct  contact  with  land  or  people. 

The  duchy  of  France  was  the  source  from  which  the 
Capetians  drew  their  actual  power,  and,  managed  with 
skill,  this  was  enough  to  form  a  solid  foundation  on  which 
to  build  a  more  general  authority.  The  national  church, 
with  its  influence  and  its  resources,  was  of  enormous  aid 
to  them,  and  it  was  of  no  slight  assistance  to  them  also 
that  they  had  on  their  side  the  theory  of  the  kingship 
and  of  the  prerogatives  of  a  strong  central  government 
which  had  come  down  from  the  earlier  Carolingian  days. 
These  were  but  shadowy  prerogatives,  and  had  no  more 


AFTER   CHARLEMAGNE  l8l 

real  value  than  the  great  feudal  lords  might  be  willing 
to  allow  them,  but  they  formed  a  perfectly  distinct  stand- 
ard towards  which  every  accession  of  strength  by  the 
Capetians  was  an  advance.  The  first  four  generations 
of  the  new  dynasty  did  but  Httle  more  than  to  secure 
the  hold  of  their  family  upon  the  throne,  carefully  ob- 
taining the  recognition  of  the  son  in  the  father's  hfetime; 
but  they  lost  nothing,  and  the  way  was  prepared  for  a 
steady  advance  of  the  royal  power  from  that  time  on. 

In  the  setting  up  of  these  national  governments  in 
France  and  in  Germany  there  are  certain  features  com- 
mon to  both  cases  which  are  worthy  of  notice. 

In  neither  does  there  seem  to  have  been  any  strong 
feeling  of  attachment  to  the  CaroUngian  house.  How 
far  one  may  be  justified  in  reasoning  from  this  is  doubt- 
ful, but  it  would  seem  that  there  was  in  both  countries 
at  least  an  unconscious  judgment  that  the  CaroHngians 
represented  a  different  condition  of  things  from  the  one 
then  present,  and  a  desire  to  choose  a  royal  house  which 
would  more  perfectly  correspond  to  the  new  development. 
Certainly  in  both  countries  it  was  a  fatal  weakness  of 
that  house  that  it  had  formed  no  local  power;  that  it 
did  not  have  in  its  hands  immediate  domains,  a  duchy 
of  its  own  which  would  have  been  strongly  devoted  to 
it  and  from  which  it  could  have  drawn  men  and  resources 
independent  of  the  great  feudal  nobles.  This  was  the 
corner-stone  of  the  success  of  the  Saxon  family  in  Ger- 
many and  of  the  Capetians  in  France.  If  the  Carolin- 
gians  had  been  great  feudal  nobles  as  well  as  kings  they 
might  possibly  have  held  their  own. 

In  both  these  states  the  church,  though  acting  indepen- 
dently, cast  its  influence  in  the  same  direction.  In  both 
cases,  as  the  power  of  the  CaroHngians  weakened^aUd-  the 
subdivisions  of  the  state  became  practically  independent, 
and  as  there  was  a  feeling  manifested  that  a  general  gov- 
ernment was  not  necessary  and  that  the  local  govern- 


l82  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

merits  were  really  better  for  the  times;  in  other  words, 
when  there  was  an  immediate  danger  of  complete  disin- 
tegration the  church  was  one  of  the  strongest  influences 
in  persuading  men  to  continue  the  national  government, 
and  in  effecting  the  transfer  of  the  state  to  the  new  fam- 
ilies which  could  give  some  promise  of  re-establishing 
a  strong  rule.  And  the  reason  in  both  cases  also  was  the 
same,  the  danger  which  would  threaten  the  general  or- 
ganization of  the  church  if  the  state  should  fall  apart 
into  entirely  separate  fragments.  In  both  cases,  too, 
when  the  transfer  had  been  made,  the  church,  both  in 
means  and  in  influence,  was  one  of  the  greatest  resources 
of  the  new  monarchy  in  its  struggle  to  consolidate  the 
state. 

In  England  the  various  Saxon  kingdoms  which  were 
established  at  the  time  of  the  conquest  had  been  united 
early  in  the  ninth  century  under  the  supremacy  of  Wes- 
sex.  At  the  end  of  that  century  the  strong  energy  and 
wisdom  of  Alfred — a  genius  equal  to  Charlemagne's  within 
his  narrower  kingdom  and  a  character  superior  to  his — 
had  laid  broad  and  sound  foundations  for  a  national  de- 
velopment. The  judicial  organization  of  the  state  was 
improved;  the  miUtary  system  was  strengthened  and 
tested  in  a  long,  and  in  the  main  successful,  war;  the  old 
and  conflicting  laws  were  formed  into  a  new  and  enlarged 
body  of  legislation;  and  learning  and  literature  were 
aided  and  encouraged  by  the  king's  own  example.  But 
it  was  a  beginning  without  immediate  results. 

England  lay  directly  in  the  way  of  the  Northmen,  and 
their  invasion  of  the  island  was  a  veritable  settlement 
like  those  of  the  earlier  Teutonic  invasions.  Alfred's  suc- 
cessors struggled  long,  but  finally  in  yain,  with  the  diffi- 
culties of  the  situation,  and  England  was  in  the  end  an- 
nexed to  the  Scandinavian  empire  of  Cnut  the  Great 
in  the  first  part  of  the  eleventh  century.  But  North- 
men and  Saxons  were  not  widely  separated  in  race  or 


AFTER   CHARLEMAGNE  1 83 

language,  and  the  blending  of  the  two  in  a  single  people 
was  not  difficult.  The  Saxon  monarchy,  which  was  re- 
established in  1042,  might  easily  have  developed  into  the 
later  nation,  but  another  element  still  was  to  be  added 
to  the  complex  English  character. 

The  Northmen  had  made  one  other  permanent  settle- 
ment besides  that  in  England,  in  northern  France,  and 
had  formed  a  httle  state  there  early  in  the  tenth  cen- 
tury, the  duchy  of  Normandy,  feudally  dependent  upon 
the  king  of  France.  There  they  had  quickly  lost  their 
identity  of  race  and  language,  and  had  developed  a  pe- 
cuHar  and  interesting  civilization.  On  the  death  of  Ed- 
ward the  Confessor,  the  last  king  of  England  of  the 
Saxon  line,  WilHam,  the  duke  of  Normandy,  asserted  a 
right  to  the  English  crown  and  speedily  made  it  good 
by  force  of  arms. 

With  him  came  a  new-  invasion  of  foreigners,  to  be  ab- 
sorbed by  a  long  process  into  the  English  people,  and 
a,  century  later,  with  the  accession  of  the  Angevin  kings, 
came  another  immigration  of  the  same  sort.  So  that 
even  in  England,  though  it  had  the  advantage  of  the 
continental  states,  in  its  smaller  size  which  rendered  the 
task  of  a  common  government  easier,  a  genuine  national 
consciousness  was  formed  only  towards  the  close  of  the 
middle  ages.  But  with  the  accession  of  WiUiam,  in 
1066^  the  state  took  on  its  external  form,  as  had  the 
German  and  the  French  states  in  the  preceding  century. 

This  new  government  presents,  however,  at  its  begin- 
ning a  marked  contrast  to  those  of  the  other  two  coun- 
tries; the  feudal  system  on  its  poKtical  side  had  not 
grown  up  in  England  under  the  Saxon  kings  as  it  had  on 
the  Continent.  The  German  elements,  which  were  one 
of  the  sources  of  feudaUsm,  had  developed  there  into 
institutions  which  may  rightly  in  some  particulars  be 
called  feudal,  but  the  essential  features  of  the  historical 
feudal  system  were  lacking,  and  no  powerful  baronage 


184  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

had  been  formed  standing  between  the  Enghsh  people 
and  the  state,  and  exercising  by  right  or  by  usurpation 
the  royal  prerogatives.  The  Continental  political  feudal 
system  was  introduced  into  England  by  the  Conqueror, 
but  it  was  not  the  ordinary  feudaKsm  of  Europe.  It  was 
feudalism  of  the  type  which  prevailed  in  Normandy, 
highly  centralized  and  serv-ing  as  the  machinery  of  gov- 
ernment under  a  sovereign  who  remained  the  most  pow- 
erful factor  in  the  state.  Following  a  practice  which  had 
been  universal  in  the  early  days  of  feudahsm,  and  which 
had  not  fallen  out  of  use  in  the  duchy  of  Normandy,  he 
claimed  the  superior  allegiance,  enforced  by  an  oath,  of 
the  vassals  of  every  lord.  The  lands  which  he  granted  to 
his  followers  were  scattered  about,  probably  more  from 
local  conditions  than  by  intention,  in  such  a  way  that 
they  could  in  few  cases  be  consolidated  into  little  states 
within  the  state,  and  with  his  gifts  of  land  he  did  not 
grant  away  royal  prerogatives.  He  retained  also,  as  the 
direct  royal  domains,  much  larger  territories  than  he 
granted  to  any  vassal. 

The  results  were  decisive.  Feudalism  was  gradually 
introduced  into  England,  and  after  a  time,  in  the  legal 
theory,  the  feudal  principles  came  to  control  all  land- 
holding,  but  there  never  grew  up  in  England  any  such 
political  system  as  on  the  Continent.  The  king  was  at 
the  very  outset  the  strongest  power  in  the  state,  and  the 
period  in  English  history  which  is  most  nearly  that  of 
an  absolute  monarchy  is  that  of  her  Norman  and  first 
Angevin  kings. 

In  Spain,  as  in  Italy,  there  was  nothing  correspond- 
ing to  a  national  government,  but  for  a  different  reason. 
The  old  German  kingdom  of  the  Visigoths  had  fallen  in 
the  eighth  century  before  the  Saracen  invasion.  In  the 
ninth  century  a  row  of  Christian  states  began  to  form 
across  the  northern  edge  of  the  country,  partly  from  the 
refugees  who  had  saved  themselves  in  the  mountains  of 


AFTER   CHARLEMAGNE  185 

the  northwest  from  submission  to  the  Arabs  and  partly 
from  the  Prankish  counties  in  Charlemagne's  Spanish 
territory.  By  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century  the 
kingdoms  of  Leon,  Castile,  Navarre,  Aragon,  and  Barce- 
lona had  taken  shape,  and  had  begun  the  double  process 
of  pushing  the  Arabs  farther  and  farther  towards  the 
south  and  of  uniting  with  one  another.  Both  these  proc- 
esses go  on  through  all  the  remainder  of  medieval  his- 
tory, and,  indeed,  it  is  a  fact  which  had  important  polit- 
ical consequences  in  modern  history  that  the  people  of 
Spain  were  not  united  in  a  common  national  feeling  even 
at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

We  have,  then,  as  the  outcome  of  this  period,  a  foun- 
dation laid  for  the  later  national  development  in  the 
leading  countries  of  Europe,  each  with  its  own  peculiar 
features.  Let  us  compare  briefly  the  state  of  things  that 
existed  in  the  eleventh  century  with  the  situation  in  each 
of  the  three  great  states — England,  France,  and  Germany 
—just  after  the  opening  of  modern  history,  say  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  we  shall  readily  find  the  key  to 
the  inner  political  history  of  these  countries  during  the  in- 
tervening centuries. 

In  Germany,  at  the  beginning  of  the  eleventh  century, 
the  royal  power,  if  not  absolute  or  undisputed,  was  strong. 
The  most  essential  steps  had  been  taken  towards  consoli- 
dating the  state  and  destroying  the  tendencies  towards 
local  independence,  and  there  was  every  promise  that 
the  process  would  go  on  to  complete  success.  In  the 
seventeenth  century  we  find  the  central  power  reduced 
to  a  mere  name,  with  none  of  the  characteristics  what- 
ever of  a  national  government,  and  the  territory  occu- 
pied by  the  nation  spht  up  into  hundreds  of  little  states, 
to  all  intents  and  purposes  entirely  independent.  In  the 
time  between  these  two  dates  something  must  have 
greatly  weakened  the  royal  power  and  allowed  the  dis- 
ruptive  forces,  which  the   Saxon  kings  had   apparently 


l86  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

overcome,  to  act  again  and  to  bring  about  their  natural 
results — results  much  more  extreme  indeed  and  more 
disastrous  for  the  nation  than  those  which  were  threat- 
ened at  the  beginning  by  the  revival  of  the  old  tribal 
spirit. 

In  France,  in  the  eleventh  century,  the  royal  power 
was  hardly  more  than  a  mere  theory,  and  the  country 
was  broken  up  into  numerous  fragments  which  were 
practically  almost  as  independent  as  those  of  modern 
Germany.  In  the  France  of  the  seventeenth  century  we 
find,  on  the  other  hand,  an  almost  ideal  centralization. 
Every  function  of  the  general  government  and  almost 
every  one  of  local  government  is  exercised  by  Louis  XIV, 
and  scarcely  a  vestige  is  left  of  any  constitutional  check 
upon  his  irresponsible  will.  The  intervening  history  must 
have  been  one  of  continuous  centralization.  The  kings 
must  have  been  able  to  destroy  completely  the  feudal 
system,  to  force  the  nobles  into  obedience,  and  to  re- 
cover without  exception  the  prerogatives  which  they  had 
usurped.  French  history  must  be  the  history  of  the  for- 
mation of  a  real  national  government  out  of  a  feudal 
chaos. 

When  wc  examine  English  history  in  the  seventeenth 
century  we  find  the  kings  engaged  in  a  final  struggle  to 
preserve  the  last  relics  of  that  absolutism  which  the 
Norman  kings  had  exercised  without  a  check,  and  that 
century  does  not  close  until  they  had  virtually  confessed 
defeat,  and  the  real  management  of  the  state  had  passed 
into  the  hands  of  a  legislative  assembly  representing 
both  nobles  and  people — an  assembly  strongly  aristocratic 
in  its  spirit  and  composition,  but  started  already,  as  is 
plainly  to  be  seen,  in  the  direction  of  a  more  democratic 
government.  Enghsh  domestic  history  during  these  cen- 
turies must  have  been  very  different  from  either  French 
or  German.  In  some  way  a  virtual  alliance  must  have 
been  brought  about  between  the  nobles — so  much  weaker 


AFTER    CHARLEMAGNE  187 

at  the  start  than  the  king — and  the  representatives  of  a 
strong  middle  class,  and  together  they  must  have  carried 
on  the  work  of  limiting  the  royal  power  and  of  finding 
out  constitutional  checks  upon  the  exercise  of  the  king's 
prerogatives  which  should  gradually  transfer  the  real  con- 
trol of  affairs  to  themselves. 

The  later  medieval  history  of  Germany  is  the  history 
of  the  destruction  of  a  promising  national  organization; 
of  France,  the  history  of  the  construction  of  a  complete 
absolutism;  of  England,  the  history  of  the  formation  of 
a  constitutionally  limited  monarchy. 

The  movement  towards  nation  formation  which  follows 
the  breaking  up  of  Charlemagne's  empire  was  only  a 
slight  and  vaguely  conscious  beginning,  but  it  was  a  be- 
ginning clearly  and  definitely,  and  of  the  very  greatest 
interest.  The  importance  of  the  step  in  advance  which 
was  taken  when  the  nation  came  finally  into  conscious 
existence,  as  a  result  of  the  movement  which  begins  in 
the  ninth  century,  cannot  be  stated  in  words  nor  in  any 
way  measured.  The  whole  of  civilization  was  lifted  at 
once  by  that  step  to  a  higher  plane.  As  in  the  opening 
age  of  civilization  of  which  history  tells  us  anything — 
not  by  inference  backward  but  by  record — the  unit  was 
the  family,  and  later  the  tribe  was  formed  by  a  union 
of  families,  and  later  still  the  city  state  by  a  coalition  of 
tribes,  and  all  ancient  history  centred  about  the  strife  of 
city  state  with  city  state,  until  one  such  city  had  grown 
into  a  great  empire  in  which  all  city  and  race  lines  were 
obliterated  in  one  vast  unity  vvhich  was  neither  city 
state  nor  yet  nation,  so  by  the  end  of  the  middle  ages 
another  stage  in  this  line  of  progress  was  reached,  and  in 
modern  times  the  unit  of  all  political  and  public  life 
and  the  acting  force  in  what  we  call  "international" 
politics  has  been  the  nation — not  the  state,  nor  the  gov- 
ernment, but  the  living  organism  which  expresses  itself 


l88  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

through  the  state — a  higher  organism  than  any  which 
had  existed  in  the  classical  world. ^  It  may  be  char- 
acterized as  a  community  of  persons  having  a  common 
language  and  race  feeling,  common  interests,  aspirations, 
and  history,  and  occupying  a  definite  territory  in  which 
city  and  country  are  indistinguishably  blended,  and  feel- 
ing itself  a  fully  independent  and  equal  member  of  a 
larger  system  of  things,  once  Christendom,  "now  perhaps 
the  whole  world.  One  of  the  most  profound  forces  of 
modern  times  made  its  way  into  history  with  the  gradual 
formation  of  this  idea,  and  the  broadening  of  all  thought 
and  the  stimulating  of  all  activities  which  accompanied  it. 

1  If  we  could  venture  to  put  any  trust  in  the  apparently  regular  and  nat- 
ural character  of  this  progress,  the  next  step  logically  would  seem  to  be  the 
formation  of  some  kind  of  an  international  federation,  or  possibly  even  a 
world  state.  It  would  not  be  difficult  to  point  out  at  least  a  few  tendencies 
of  the  present  time  which  seem  to  point  in  the  direction  of  such  a  result — 
a  possibility  which  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  though  seemingly  in  the  best 
position  to  realize  it,  does  not  appear  to  recognize,  certainly  not  so  con- 
sciously as  some  other  races  do. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    FEUDAL   SYSTEM  ^ 

Out  of  the  fragments  of  the  Carolingian  empire  the 
modern  nations  were  finally  to  arise.  But  there  was  in 
the  meantime,  as  we  have  seen,  a  considerable  period, 
after  the  fall  of  the  old  government,  before  any  real  na- 
tional governments,  at  all  corresponding  to  the  modern 
idea,  came  into  existence.  This  is  the  period  when  the 
feudal  system  was  the  prevailing  form  of  pohtical  organi- 
zation. 

In  any  detailed  history  of  civilization  it  would  be 
necessary  to  give  much  space  to  the  feudal  system,  both 
because  of  the  large  field  which  it  occupies  in  the  polit- 
ical life  of  the  middle  ages,  and  also  because  it  is  one 
of  the  most  influential  of  medieval  institutions,  the  source' 
of  legal  principles  and  social  ideas,  which  are,  even  now, 
by  no  means  obsolete.  , 

'  Some  portions  of  this  chapter  are  a  more  detailed  statement  of  the  facts 
than  is  ordinarily  the  case  in  this  book  because  there  is  as  yet  in  English 
no  fully  satisfactory  account  either  of  the  origin  or  of  the  final  character 
of  feudalism.  The  author's  article  "Feudahsm"  in  the  eleventh  edition  of 
the  TLncyclopcedia  Brilannka  is  closely  parallel  to  this  chapter  and  also  a 
summary  account,  but  it  treats  of  several  points  more  fully.  It  has  not 
seemed  best  in  a  book  of  this  kind  to  attempt  any  account  of  feudal  prac- 
tices in  detail.  It  should  be  noticed  that  the  word  "system"  is  used  in  the 
phrase  "feudal  system"  for  convenience  merely  and  with  no  intention  of 
conveying  the  meaning  "systematic."  In  regard  to  the  character  of  com- 
pleted feudalism,  the  contribution  made  by  the  feudal  law  to  national  sys- 
tems of  law  was  so  great  that  a  somewhat  more  accurate  knowledge  of  feudal 
practices  was  preserved,  and  the  accounts  of  these  matters  given  in  such 
books,  for  Example,  as  Hallam's  Middle  Ages  and  Guizot's  History  of  Civiliza- 
tion In  France  are  more  nearly  in  agreement  with  the  facts,  though  needing 
modification  in  many  ways,  than  what  these  authors  have  to  say  of  the 
origin  of  the  system. 

i8g 


igo  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

The  question  of  the  origin  of  the  feudal  system  is  one 
of  the  most  difficult  in  all  institutional  history,  for  one 
reason,  because  it  took  its  rise  in  ages  which  have  left 
us  very  scanty  historical  material,  and  for  another,  be- 
cause it  originated  in  the  domain  of  extra-legal  and  pri- 
vate operations,  and  under  the  influence  of  forces  which 
leave  but  slight  traces  of  their  working.  Every  impor- 
tant point  in  this  history  has  been  the  subject  of  long 
and  violent  controversy,  and  is  so  still,  though  to  a  less 
extent.  It  may  be  said  that  opinion  is  now  practically 
united  upon  the  main  points  in  the  history  of  political 
feudalism,  and  that  present  differences  concern  minor 
points  of  detail,  or  the  amount  of  emphasis  which  shall 
be  placed  upon  certain  facts. 

Before  entering  upon  the  details  of  the  origin  of  the 
feudal  system,  there  is  one  general  consideration  which 
has  an  important  bearing  upon  the  study  which  should 
be  made  clear.  It  is  necessary  here,  and  in  all  institu- 
tional history,  to  distinguish  very  carefully  between  two 
sets  of  causes  or  antecedents.  Fjfst,  there  is  the  general 
cause,  or  the  prevailing  condition  of  things  in  the  society 
of  the  time,  which  renders  a  new  institution  necessary; 
and,  second,  there  is  the  old  institution,  on  which  the  pre- 
vailing cause  seizes,  and  which  it  transforms  into  a  new 
one.  Both  these  are  always  present.  No  institution  ever 
starts  into  life  wholly  new.  Every  new  institution  has 
its  foundation  far  in  the  past  in  some  earlier  one.  The 
prevailing  necessity  transforms  it  into  a  new  institu- 
tion, but  the  character  of  the  new  creation  is  as  much 
conditioned  by  the  character  of  the  old  as  it  is  by  the 
new  necessity  which  it  is  made  to  meet.  The  sneer  which 
is  sometimes  heard  against  that  sort  of  investigation 
which  seeks  the  foundations  of  a  new  institution  in  those 
which  have  preceded  it,  as  merely  antiquarian,^is  proof 
only  of  a  very  narrow  conception  of  history. 

The  application  of  this  consideration  to  the  present 


THE   FEUDAL    SYSTEM  IQl 

case  becomes  clear  enough  when  the  problem  before  us 
is  specifically  stated.  What  we  have  to  do  is  not  to  ac- 
count for  the  rise  of  feudal  forms  in  general,  but  to  ac- 
count for  that  peculiar  feudal  system,  which  arose  in 
western  Europe  in  the  middle  ages.  It  is  undoubtedly 
true  that  institutions  have  existed  in  Japan,  and  in  Cen- 
tral Africa,  and  in  various  Mohammedan  states,  almost 
everywhere,  indeed,  which  are  justly  called  feudal.  It  is 
true  that  under  certain  pohtical  conditions  human  nature 
turns,  naturally  as  it  would  seem,  to  forms  of  govern- 
ment which  are  feudal.  And  it  is  necessary  to  take  these 
political  and  social  conditions  into  account  in  our  study 
of  the  problem  more  fully  than  has  been  done,  perhaps, 
by  some  merely  institutional  historians.  They  are  among 
the  most  essential  causes  at  work.  But  when  taken  alone 
they  merely  account  for  the  rise  of  feudal  forms  in  gen- 
eral. They  give  us  no  reason  for  the  fact  that  in  insti- 
tutional details  these  various  feudal  systems  differ  from 
one  another  in  essential  particulars.  To  explain  this  fact 
we  must  turn  to  the  earlier  institutional  foundation  on 
which  in  each  case  the  social  forces  built. 

By  "the  feudal  system,"  when  used  without  qualifica- 
tion, we  always  mean  the  system  of  medieval  western 
Europe,  and  in  accounting  for  its  origin  we  have  two 
sets  of  facts  to  consider — the  condition  of  society  which 
gave  such  forms  an  opportunity  to  develop,  and  the  ear- 
lier institutions  which  were  transformed  by  these  social 
and  economic  conditions  into  the  historical  feudal  system, 
and  which  determined  the  form  assumed  by  many  of  the 
special  features  of  that  system. 

By  "the  feudal  system"  again  we  commonly  mean,  as 
we  should,  the  entire  organization  of  society  from  top  to 
bottom.  In  studying  it,  therefore,  we  have  constantly 
to  remember  that  this  organization  was  a  two-sided  one. 
There  had  been  more  or  less  closely  combined  in  it^wo 
distinct  groups  of  practices  and  institutions  which^w^e 


192  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

in  their  origin  independent  of  one  another,  which  had 
grown  up  to  meet  different  needs,  and  which  remained 
to  the  end  clearly  distinguished  by  contemporaries  and 
easily  distinguishable  by  us.  Described  in  the  most  gen- 
eral terms,  one  side  was  the  feudal  organization  of  gov- 
ernment, and  the  other  was  the  feudal  organization  of 
agriculture.  In  the  case  of  both  ahke,  development  of 
the  original  beginnings  had  been  induced  by  the  same 
general  condition  of  things  in  the  middle  and  later  em- 
pire, the  decay  of  the  ancient  civilization,  political  and 
economic.  On  one  side  political  influences  were  especially 
active;  certain  earlier  legal  practices  were  seized  upon 
and  developed  into  institutions  practically  new  in  order 
to  furnish  to  the  free  man  locally  the  protection  which 
the  general  government  was  no  longer  able  to  give.  On 
the  other  side  the  economic  were  the  chief  influences, 
and  institutions  which  had  for  their  object  to  secure 
compulsorily  the  necessary  cultivation  of  the  soil  were 
developed  and  added  to  existing  institutions.  The  former 
gave  rise  to  what  we  more  often  mean  when  we  speak 
of  feudalism,  the  latter  to  what  we  may  call,  using  a 
term  more  frequent  in  England  than  elsewhere,  the  ma- 
norial system.  Logically,  historically,  and  legally,  there 
was  no  necessary  connection  between  these  two  sides  of 
feudalism.  There  need  have  been  no  actual  connection. 
Either  side  might  become  highly  developed  with  prac- 
tically no,  or  an  imperfect,  development  of  the  other,  as 
did  economic  feudalism  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  stateB.  In 
the  actual  situation,  however,  both  earlier  and  later,  the 
vast  importance  of  agriculture  as  the  chief  source  of 
wealth  and  the  chief  support  of  life  made  it  inevitable 
that,  where  political  feudalism  was  at  all  developed,  it 
should  enter  into  a  partnership  with  economic  feudalism. 
It  is  of  great  importance  to  remember  that  their  union 

fir  more  than  a  partnership.  They  never  were 
ated  into  one,  but  the  two  sides  remained  dis- 
l  distinguishable  so  long  as  they  existed. 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  I93 

It  does  not  accord  with  the  general  purpose  of  this 
book  to  undertake  a  detailed  account  of  the  rise  of  the 
manorial  system  or  description  of  its  final  character. 
These  things  are  to  be  sought  in  the  special  field  of  eco- 
nomic history.  Here  it  will  suffice  to  say  that  the  manorial 
system  was  created  by  taking  as  a  beginning  the  Roman 
system  of  organizing  the  cultivation  of  a  great  estate 
as  a  unit,  managed  from  a  common  centre,  the  villa,  and 
adding  to  it  the  practice  of  attaching  the  agricultural 
laborer  to  the  soil  so  that  he  could  not  leave  it  himself 
or  be  removed  from  it  by  the  landlord.  This  practice 
created  the  serf  class,  and  by  combining  it  with  the  great 
estate  cultivated  as  a  unit,  the  manor  was  created.  So 
simple  a  statement,  however,  does  not  dispose  of  all  the 
difficulties  of  this  development,  nor  was  the  manorial 
system,  even  where  independent  of  feudalism  proper, 
quite  so  completely  divorced  from  all  results  that  may 
be  called  political,  as  this  would  seem  to  imply.  Espe- 
cially is  it  necessary  to  notice  one  development  inti- 
mately connected  with  the  rise  of  the  manor  which  re- 
sults in  many  cases  in  the  transfer  to  the  lord  of  the 
manor  of  a  responsibility  which  is  political,  and  normally 
the  function  of  the  state. 

In  the  simplest  terms,  which  nevertheless  describe  ac- 
curately the  general  process,  this  transfer  came  about 
in  the  following  way:  The  Roman  master  had  over  his 
slaves  the  power  of  life  and  death  and  of  all  minor 
punishment.  The  state  assumed  no  responsibility  in  re- 
gard to  the  misdemeanors  and  crimes  of  the  slave.  As 
the  slave  was  transformed  into  the  serf,  still  unfree,  the 
master's  responsibility  in  these  matters  continued  the 
same.  But  as  the  serf  had  been  granted  certain  limited 
rights,  a  definite  piece  of  land,  the  temporary  possession 
of  some  personal  property,  disputes  between  them  over 
these  things,  which  would  be  of  the  nature  of  civil,  not 
criminal,  cases  would  arise.  These  also  fell  to  the  lord's 
decision.     Here  is  the  germ  of  a  jurisdiction  and  a  court, 


194  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

which  very  likely  in  the  beginning  did  not  extend  over 
free  men.  As  by  degrees,  however,  partly  from  economic 
and  partly  from  political  reasons,  free  men  began  to  be 
included  within  the  manorial  organization,  it  was  inevi- 
table that  disputes  between  them  and  other  members  of 
the  same  community  should  fall  into  the  lord's  court. 
The  state  in  its  weakness  was  probably  not  unwilling 
that  his  responsibility  should  also  extend  itself  at  least 
to  some  of  the  criminal  acts  of  free  men.  It  is  only  nec- 
essary to  suppose  that  the  manor  in  time  became  identical 
in  extent  with  the  territorial  jurisdiction  of  some  local 
public  court,  the  town  or  the  hundred,  to  see  how  easy 
it  would  be  to  take  a  further  step  and  to  identify,  by 
royal  grant  or  private  usurpation,  the  local  public  court 
of  that  territory  with  the  private  court  which  had  grown 
up  in  the  manor. 

This  process  was  greatly  aided  by  the  fact  that  both 
the  general  government  and  the  landlord  looked  upon  the 
administration  of  local  justice  largely  as  a  source  of  reve- 
nue. Fees  and  fines,  which  in  those  days  were  paid  in 
every  case,  were  considered  no  insignificant  additions  to 
public  or  private  income.  It  was  evidently  the  economic 
consideration  which  was  the  chief  one  in  this  transfer, 
but  the  efi^ect  was  to  a  considerable  extent  political.  What 
is  really  a  function  of  local  government  had  passed  into 
private  hands,  in  many  cases  quite  independently  of  the 
other  general  transformation  which  was  going  on  at  the 
same  time  of  the  functions  of  the  central  government  into 
private  possession  in  the  rise  of  political  feudalism  proper. 
Where  this  transfer  took  place  the  local  court,  if  it  was 
that  of  a  small  political  unit  like  the  town,  was  often 
united  with  the  manorial  court,  so  that  the  two  became 
practically  one.  If  it  was  that  of  a  larger  unit  like  the 
hundred,  the  public  court  often  continued  distinct  though 
in  private  hands.  Whether  united  or  distinct,  however, 
the  two  jurisdictions,  the  manorial  and  the  local  public. 


THE    FEUDAL    SYSTEM  I95 

were  in  almost  all  cases  distinguishable  from  one  another, 
and  seem  to  have  been  so  distinguished  by  contempora- 
ries. The  manorial  jurisdiction  proper  remained  a  feature 
of  economic  feudalism  so  long  as  that  system  survived, 
and  indeed  in  some  countries  it  continued  long  after  politi- 
cal feudalism  proper  had  disappeared  and  local  jurisdic- 
tion been  fully  resumed  by  the  state.  In  this  form  it 
came  to  be  transferred  to  some  of  the  American  colonies 
like  Maryland. 

The  political  feudal  system  proper,  with  which  we  have 
chiefly  to  deal,  came  into  existence  in  the  eighth  and 
ninth  centuries,  owing  to  the  disorders  of  the  time,  and 
the  inability  of  the  central  government — even  of  so  strong 
a  government  as  Charlemagne's — to  do  its  necessary  work 
without  some  such  help.  It  is  itself  a  crude  and  barba- 
rous form  of  government  in  which  the  political  organiza- 
tion is  based  on  the  tenure  of  land;  that  is,  the  public 
duties  and  obligations  which  ordinarily  the  citizen  owes 
to  the  state,  are  turned  into  private  and  personal  services 
which  he  owes  to  his  lord  in  return  for  land  which  he  has 
received  from  him.  The  state  no  longer  depends  upon 
its  citizens,  as  citizens,  for  the  fulfilment  of  public  duties, 
but  it  depends  upon  a  certain  few  to  perform  specified 
duties,  which  they  owe  as  vassals  of  the  king,  and  these 
in  turn  depend  upon  their  vassals  for  services,  which  will 
enable  them  to  meet  their  own  obligations  towards  the 
king.  The  services  rendered  in  this  way  were  not  re- 
garded in  the  feudal  age  as  an  economic  return  for  the 
land,  and  all  ranks  obtained  their  necessary  income  from 
other  sources,  chiefly  from  the  economic  side  of  feudal- 
ism, that  is,  the  manorial  organization. 

There  are  always  present  in  this  political  feudal  sys- 
tem two  elements  which  seem  very  closely  united  together, 
but  which  are  really  distinct,  and  to  be  kept  apart  from 
one  another  in  mind  if  we  are  to  understand  the  origin  of 
the  system.     They  were  distinct  in  origin  and  early  his- 


T96  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

tory  and  were  brought  together  only  in  the  middle  period 
of  feudal  growth.  One  of  these  relates  wholly  to  land 
and  the  tenure  by  which  it  is  held.  This  land  element  is 
the  "benefice"  or  "fief.."  The  other  is  the  personal  rela- 
tion, the  bond  of  mutual  fidelity  and  protection  which 
binds  together  the  grades  in  the  feudal  hierarchy.  This 
personal  element  is  the  relation  of  lord  and  vassal.  In 
the  ideal  feudal  system  these  two  elements  are  always 
united,  the  vassal  always  receives  a  fief,  the  fief  is  al- 
ways held  by  a  vassal.  In  practice  they  were  sometimes 
separated,  and  in  some  countries  such  a  separation  was 
recognized  by  the  feudal  law.  There  are,  then,  these  two 
specific  questions  concerning  the  origin  of  the  feudal  sys- 
tem: How  did  these  two  institutions,  vassalage  and  the 
benefice,  come  into  existence  and  become  united;  and 
how  did  public  duties,  for  example  military  service,  get 
attached  to  them,  and  become  changed  in  this  way  into 
private  services  which  one  paid  as  a  form  of  land  rent? 

When  we  come  to  trace  the  origin  of  these  two  insti- 
tutions we  find  that  we  are  carried  back  to  the  time  of 
political  insecurity  when  the  Roman  Empire  was  falling 
to  pieces,  just  before  and  at  the  moment  of  the  German 
invasions.  Then  began  the  conditions  which  called  these 
institutions  into  existence,  and  which,  continuing  in  the 
main  unchanged  through  the  whole  period,  transformed 
them  into  the  perfected  feudal  system. 

As  the  real  power  which  the  Roman  emperor  had  at 
his  command  declined,  his  ability  to  protect  the  citizens 
and  preserve  order  in  the  outlying  provinces  became 
less  and  less.  The  peace  and  security  which  Rome  had 
formerly  established  could  no  longer  be  maintained,  and 
the  provinces  fell  a  prey  to  various  disorders.  Usurp- 
ing emperors,  peasants  in  insurrection,  revolted  troops, 
bands  of  invading  Germans,  marauders  of  all  sorts  ap- 
peared everywhere,  and  the  state  could  not  hold  them 
in  check.     But  the  individual  must  obtain  protection  at 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  1 97 

some  price.  If  he  owns  land,  he  will  need  protection  in 
order  to  cultivate  it  and  enjoy  the  returns;  if  he  has  no 
land,  he  will  still  need  protection  for  his  life  and  his 
means  of  livelihood.  If  he  cannot  get  it  from  the  state 
he  must  seek  it  where  he  can  find  it.  In  such  political 
conditions  there  always  arises  a  class  of  men  strong 
enough  from  wealth  or  position  or  abilities  to  give  some 
degree  of  protection  to  weaker  men.  The  weaker  men 
take  refuge  with  the  stronger  and  increase  their  power, 
which  thus  grows  into  a  little  semi-detached  fragment  of 
the  state,  and  the  germ  of  the  feudal  system  has  come 
into  existence. 

In  the  later  Roman  Empire,  under  the  influence  of 
these  conditions,  two  practices  arose  which  we  need  to 
notice.  One  of  them  related  to  land,  the  other  to  per- 
sons owning  no  land.  In  the  case  of  the  first,  the  small 
landowner,  long  at  an  economic  disadvantage,  and  now, 
in  the  midst  of  the  crowding  evils  of  the  time,  threat- 
ened with  total  destruction,  gave  up  his  land  to  some  large 
landowner  near  him,  whose  position  was  strong  enough 
to  command  or  compel  respect  from  vagrant  enemies, 
and  received  it  back  from  him  to  cultivate,  no  longer  as 
owner,  but  as  a  tenant  at  will.  As  the  form  of  tenure  to 
be  used  in  such  cases,  a  peculiar  kind  of  lease  which  had 
been  known  to  the  Roman  law  as  the  precarium  received 
a  great  extension  in  practice.  Under  this  form  the  owner 
gi:anted  the  use  of  a  piece  of  property  to  another,  with- 
out rent  and  with  no  period  of  time  specified,  but  with 
the  right  to^call  it  back  at  will.^     This  was  the  kind  of 

'  The  language  of  the  Digest  both  illustrates  this  point  and  suggests 
the  way  in  which  benefice  came  to  take  the  place  of  precarium  as  the  tech- 
nical word.  It  says,  XLIII,  26,  14,  "Interdictum  de  precariis  merito 
introductum  est,  quia  nulla  eo  nomine  juris  civilis  actio  esset;  magis  enim 
ad  donationes  et  beneficii  causam,  quam  ad  negotii  contract!  spcctat  pre- 
carii  condicio."  This  means  that  a  case  concerning  a  precarium  does  not 
have  the  same  standing  in  the  courts  as  an  ordinary  business  transaction, 
because  a  grant  in  this  form  is  not  so  much  a  matter  of  business  as  of  gift 
or  to  confer  a  benefit. 


198  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

tenure  by  which  the  small  landholder  held  and  cultivated 
the  land  which  he  had  been  obliged  to  surrender  to  some 
strong  man  for  fear  of  losing  it  entirely.  He  lost  the 
ownership  of  it;  he  held  it  only  so  long  as  his  lord  might 
please,  but  his  actual  condition  was  much  improved.  In 
the  growing  scarcity  of  laborers  he  was  not  likely  to  be 
disturbed  in  his  tenure,  and  he  had  now  an  armed  force 
which  could  be  depended  on  to  keep  off  all  marauders 
not  actually  armies,  and  he  had  a  right  to  take  refuge  in 
his  lord's  fortress  on  some  not  distant  hilltop  when  a 
more  serious  invasion  threatened. 

The  other  practice  was  adopted  to  meet  the  case  of 
the  freeman  who  owned  no  land,  and  it  gave  rise  to  an 
institution  closely  resembling,  possibly  derived  from,  the 
clientele  which  Caesar  describes  as  prevailing  in  Gaul  at  the 
time  of  his  conquest,  and  not  unlike  the  earlier  Roman 
institution  of  patron  and  chent.  The  dependant  is  often 
called  a  client  in  the  language  of  the  time,  and  the  insti- 
tution itself  the  patrociniiim.  In  a  case  of  this  sort  the 
poor  freeman  goes  to  the  rich  and  strong  man  who  can 
afford  him  protection,  and  explaining  that  he  can  no 
longer  care  for  or  support  himself,  begs  to  be  taken  under 
his  protection  and  furnished  with  shelter  and  support. 
The  rich  man  grants  the  petition,  adds  the  client  to  his 
household,  and  expects  from  him,  in  return,  such  services 
as  a  freeman  may  perform.  There  seems  to  have  been 
no  specified  services,  nor  peculiar  duty  of  fidelity  in  this 
arrangement,  but  its  obligations  were  probably  clearly 
enough  defined  in  the  customary  law  which  all  under- 
stood. In  this  way  many  local  magnates  of  the  age  of 
the  invasion  collected  about  them  considerable  forces, 
composed  also  partly  of  armed  slaves  and  serfs,  and  so 
added  greatly  to  their  own  power,  and  furnished  the  lo- 
cality with  some  degree  of  security.  In  some  instances, 
both  in  the  East  and  in  the  West,  we  know  that  such 
private  forces  amounted  to  respectable  armies  and  served 


THE    FEUDAL    SYSTEM  1 99 

to  protect  extensive  territories,  or  even  to  turn  the  march 
of  an  invading  tribe. 

It  is  important  to  notice  that,  in  the  case  of  the  free- 
man entering  into  either  of  these  relations,  the  personal 
one  or  the  one  relating  to  land,  there  was  no  loss  of  polit- 
ical status  or  personal  freedom.  The  dependant,  under 
the  new  arrangement,  remained,  in  either  relation,  ex- 
actly what  he  had  been  before,  both  in  reference  to  his 
duties  to  the  government  and  his  personal  rights. 

It  was  of  course  true,  as  the  history  of  the  Roman  tax 
system  makes  evident,  that  the  rich  man  might  be  so 
strong  in  his  district  that  he  could  refuse  to  meet  his 
obligations  towards  the  government,  and  set  the  local 
officers  at  defiance,  and  so  be  able  to  protect  from  the 
burdens  of  the  state  the  poorer  men  who  became  his 
clients  and  dependants.  He  could  also  protect  them 
from  the  not  infrequent  abuse  of  power  by  ofiicials. 
These  were,  no  doubt,  reasons  for  the  rapid  extension  of 
these  practices.  But  if  he  interfered  with  the  real  rights 
of  the  government,  it  was  an  illegal  usurpation,  not  a 
recognized  change  in  the  status  or  duties  of  his  depen- 
dents. That  such  results  did  follow  is  clear  enough  from 
the  attitude  of  the  state  towards  these  practices,  which 
it  pronounced  illegal  and  forbade  under  the  heaviest  pen- 
alties. But  it  was  powerless  to  interfere,  and  even  the 
death  penalty  had  no  efTect  to  check  them.  Indeed,  if 
the  state  had  been  strong  enough  to  stop  them,  it  would 
have  been  strong  enough  to  have  preserved  such  general 
security  that  no  necessity  for  such  customs  would  ever 
have  arisen. 

The  results,  as  seen  at  the  time  of  the  invasions,  have 
many  features  in  common  with  the  later  feudal  system, 
and  it  is  right,  in  the  sense  mentioned  at  the  beginning 
of  the  chapter,  to  speak  of  them  as  feudal,  but  they  are 
still  far  from  being  the  historical  feudal  system. 

In  the  first  place,  the  characteristic  feature  of  the  later 


200  MEDI£VAL   CIVILIZATION 

feudalism  was  lacking.  These  two  practices  remained 
entirely  distinct  from  one  another.  They  were  not  yet 
united  into  a  single  institution.  The  personal  relation, 
or  clientship,  did  not  imply  at  all  the  reception  of  land, 
and  holding  land  by  the  precarium  tenure  involved  no 
obhgation  of  service. 

In  the  second  place,  there  was  no  common  organiza- 
tion, either  expressed  or  implied,  as  there  was  in  the 
completed  feudal  system,  between  the  various  local 
powers  which  had  been  formed.  They  were  merely  pri- 
vate and  wholly  separate  fragments  into  which  the  state 
had  fallen.  In  other  words,  there  was  not  enough  con- 
nection between  them,  taken  alone,  to  have  preserved 
the  state,  as  a  state,  through  a  period  of  political  chaos, 
but  they  would  have  produced  a  thousand  Httle  local 
states  wholly  independent  and  sovereign. 

In  the  third  place,  the  state  regarded  these  institutions 
not  merely  as  unconstitutional  and  improper  for  itself, 
but  also  as  illegal  and  improper  for  private  citizens.  The 
local  potentate  might  actually  have  usurped,  as  we  know 
he  did,  many  of  the  functions  of  the  state,  judicial  as 
well  as  military,  and  have  excluded  the  state  practically 
from  his  whole  territory  and  taken  its  place  himself,  but 
this  was  a  usurpation  and  strictly  forbidden  by  the  laws. 
In  the  later  feudal  system  the  similar  practices  are  not 
merely  recognized  by  the  government  as  legal,  but  they 
are  even,  in  some  cases,  enjoined  as  duties,  and  become, 
in  practice  at  least,  the  very  constitution  of  the  state,  so 
that  in  many  cases  the  sovereignty  exercised  by  the  feudal 
baron  over  his  territory  was  the  only  sovereignty  exer- 
cised by  the  state. 

The  Franks,  when  they  entered  Gaul,  found  these 
customs  prevailing  there,  as  in  all  the  provinces  of  the 
empire.  They  dealt  with  them,  as  they  did  with  many 
Roman  institutions  which  they  found ;  they  allowed  them 
to  continue  in  use  and  they  g^opted  them  themselves 


THE    FEUDAL    SYSTEM  20I 

It  was  under  the  conditions  which  prevailed  in  the  Prank- 
ish kingdom,  and  by  means  of  the  legal  expedients  adopted 
by  the  Frankish  kings,  that  these  primitive  beginnings 
were  developed  into  the  feudal  system  of  Europe. 

The  conquest  was  indeed  a  most  serious  crisis  in  the 
history  of  feudalism.  Had  they  been  disposed  to  do  so, 
the  Frankish  kings  would  doubtless  have  found  it  easier 
than  the  Roman  emperors  had  done  to  crush  out  these 
institutions,  still  in  a  formative  condition,  and  to  estab- 
lish a  centralization,  if  not  more  complete  in  theory,  cer- 
tainly more  so  in  fact.  The  government  which  they  did 
found  had  many  of  the  features  of  an  absolutism  incom- 
patible with  the  continued  growth  of  these  institutions. 
If  they  had  destroyed  them,  and  entirely  prevented  their 
further  growth,  their  government  would  have  escaped  its 
most  dangerous  enemy  of  the  future — the  one  to  which 
it  was  finally  compelled  to  surrender.  But  the  more 
simple  political  mind  of  the  Frank  could  not  perceive 
this  danger  so  clearly  as  the  Roman  did,  and  another  fact 
was  an  even  more  decisive  influence  against  any  change. 
The  Franks  themselves  had  institutions  and  practices 
which  were  so  similar  to  those  of  the  Romans  that  it  was 
the  most  natural  thing  imaginable  for  them  to  adopt  these, 
and  to  regard  them  at  once,  as  they  had  never  before 
been  regarded,  as  perfectly  legal,  because  the  correspond- 
ing German  institutions  were.^  The  German  customs 
and  the  Roman  customs  ran  rapidly  together  into  a 
common  practice,  and  the  German  variations  from  the 
Roman  added  very  essential  elements  of  their  own  to  the 
common  product,  so  that  the  feudal  system  presents  one 
of  the  clearest  cases  that  we  have  of  the  union  of  the  Ger- 

'  Various  theories  have  been  advanced  to  account  for  this  apparently 
extraordinary'  short-sightedness  on  the  part  of  the  Frankish  kings,  both 
Merovingian  and  Carolingian.  The  fact  that  the  Germans  had  similar 
customs,  which  they  had  always  considered  not  merely  as  legal,  but  as 
highly  commendable,  especially  the  coinikUus,  would  seem  to  be  sufficient 
to  account  for  the  changed  attitude  of  the  state. 


202  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

man  and  the  Roman  factors  together  to  form  new  in- 
stitutions. 

The  most  striking  of  these  German  institutions  was 
the  comitatus,  which  we  have  briefly  described  in  the 
chapter  on  the  German  invasions.  The  old  theory  that 
the  feudal  system  was  created  by  the  settlement  of  the 
comitatus  band  upon  the  conquered  soil  is  now  abandoned/ 
but  its  place  has  been  taken  by  a  clear  recognition  of 
the  very  important  contribution  which  the  comitatus 
made  to  the  final  result.  The  institution  was  one  corre- 
sponding very  closely  to  the  Roman  client  system  which 
we  have  described  above.  It  was  a  purely  personal  rela- 
tionship of  mutual  protection,  service,  and  support,  be- 
tween a  chief  and  certain  men,  usually  young  men  of  the 
tribe,  voluntarily  entered  into  on  both  sides.  But  it  had 
certain  distinctive  features  of  its  own,  which  are  lacking 
in  the  Roman  institution,  but  characteristic  of  the  later 
feudalism.  It  was  not  regarded  by  the  Germans  as  a 
mere  business  transaction  of  give  and  take,  but  was 
looked  upon  as  conferring  especial  honor  on  lord  and 
man  alike.  It  was  entered  upon  by  a  special  ceremonial, 
and  sanctioned  by  a  solemn  oath,  and  the  bond  of  per- 
sonal fidelity  established  by  it  was  considered  to  be  of 
the  most  sacred  and  binding  character.     All  these  ideas 

^  The  most  important  point  concerning  the  origin  of  feudalism  about 
which  scholars  disagree  is  the  relation  of  vassalage  to  the  early  German 
comitatus.  Professor  Heinrich  Brunner  of  Berlin  and  some  who  follow  him 
maintain  that  the  form  of  vassalage  which  united  with  the  beneiice  to  create 
the  full  feudal  relationship  was  derived  directly  from  the  comitatus.  Against 
this  view  the  arguments  of  Fustel  de  Coulanges,  Waitz,  and  Dahn  seem 
conclusive.  Especially  valuable  is  Dahn's  summary  of  the  whole  case  in 
Die  Koenige  der  Gennanen,  VIII,  2,  151-171,  with  full  references.  It  will 
be  found,  I  think,  that  those  who  derive  vassalage  from  the  comitatus.  hold 
that  identity  of  practical  result,  identity  of  function,  determines  institu- 
tional identity.  If  this  is  true,  if  institutional  differences  are  not  structural 
differences,  and  organic  differences,  then  they  are  of  little  importance  and 
not  worth  the  trouble  it  costs  the  historian  to  investigate  and  establish 
them.  A  good  corrective  of  such  a  frame  of  mind  can  be  found  in  study- 
ing the  scientific  reasons  for  the  change  in  botany  from  the  Linnaean  sys- 
tem of  classification  to  that  which  obtains  to-day. 


THE    FEUDAL   SYSTEM  203 

and  customs  passed  from  the  comitatus  into  the  feudal 
system. 

The  Roman  practices  in  the  patrocinium,  which  the 
Franks  found  in  Gaul,  seemed  to  them,  therefore,  very- 
natural  and  proper,  and  they  adopted  them  at  once,  inter- 
preting them  according  to  their  own  ideas.  It  seems  evi- 
dent also,  as  the  Franks  became  settled  upon  the  land  and 
the  members  of  the  original  royal  comitatus  came  to  have 
private  interests  and  landed  possessions  which  made  it 
difficult  for  them  to  fulfil  the  duties  of  the  old  relation, 
or  to  be  used  for  its  purposes,  that  their  place  was  taken 
by  persons  who  had  entered  into  a  personal  relation  to 
the  king,  corresponding,  both  in  motive  and  in  form, 
rather  to  the  late  Roman  patrocinium  than  to  the  Ger- 
man comitatus.  So  that  the  institution  which  survived 
in  the  new  state  was  the  Roman  rather  than  the  German, 
which  must  necessarily  have  disappeared  in  the  decidedly 
changed  conditions  of  the  national  life,  but  it  was  the 
Roman  essentially  modified  by  ideas  and  usages  from 
the  German. 

It  was  some  little  time  after  the  conquest,  so  far  as 
the  documents  allow  us  to  judge,  before  the  Celtic  word 
vassus  began  to  be  employed  for  the  man  in  this  personal 
relation.  Originally  applied  to  servants  not  free,  it  came 
into  gradual  use  for  the  free  clients,  and  thus  acquired 
from  the  comitatus  idea  a  distinctly  honorable  meaning. 

In  reference  to  the  land  relationship,  which  we  have 
described,  it  has  been  conclusively  shown,  in  opposition 
to  earlier  theories,  that  the  Frankish  kings,  following  na- 
tive German  ideas,  did  probably  from  the  beginning  make 
donations  of  land,  which  carried  only  a  limited  right  of 
ownership,  and  which  fell  back  in  certain  contingencies 
to  the  donor. ^  Such  practices  would  make  it  easy  for 
the  Franks  to  understand  and  adopt  the  Roman  practice 

'  Brunner,  SUzungsberichle  der  Preussischen  Akademie,  1885,  p.  11 73,  and 
in  kis  Forschimgen,  pp.  1-39. 


204  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

of  the  precarium,  and  it  appears  to  have  been  so  adopted, 
quite  extensively,  by  German  private  landowners  who 
found  themselves  in  a  similar  position  to  the  Roman, 
and  to  have  been  continued  also  as  before,  by  Roman 
subjects  of  the  Frankish  state.  But  still,  to  all  appear- 
ances, it  was  not  adopted  in  any  really  important  way  by 
the  kings,  until  the  beginning  of  the  Carolingian  period, 
and  the  chief  agent  in  carrying  over  the  precari(E,  as  the 
word  came  to  be  written,  from  the  Roman  to  the  German 
state,  seems  to  have  been  the  church. 

The  church  appears  to  have  used  this  tenure  very  ex- 
tensively under  the  empire,  both  as  a  means  of  increas- 
ing its  territories — the  donor  retaining  the  use  of  his 
grant  for  life — and  also  as  a  convenient  way  of  bestow- 
ing upon  persons,  whose  support  or  favor  it  desired  to 
secure,  land  which  it  could  not  alienate.  It  seems  to 
have  introduced  a  small  rent-charge,  as  a  sign  of  owner- 
ship, and  to  have  fixed  more  exactly  the  limit  of  such 
grants  to  a  specified  time,  commonly  five  years,  or  the 
lifetime  of  the  recipient.  These  practices  it  continued 
in  very  frequent  use  under  the  Frankish  kingdom. 

Through  the  Merovingian  period  of  Frankish  history, 
therefore,  these  institutions  remained  in  very  much  the 
same  shape  in  which  they  were  under  the  empire,  except 
that  they  were  not  now  regarded  as  illegal.  It  is  in  the 
Carolingian  period  that  they  took  the  next  great  steps 
in  their  development — the  steps  that  were  essentially 
necessary  to  the  formation  of  the  historical  feudal  system. 
They  then  became  united  as  the  two  sides  of  a  single 
institution,  and  they  were  adopted  by  the  government 
as  a  means  of  securing  the  performance  of  their  public 
duties  by  the  subjects  of  the  state.  The  simplest  ex- 
ample of  this  process  is  the  transformation  of  the  citi- 
zen army  into  a  feudal  army,  and  this  gives  us  also,  in 
its  main  features,  the  history  of  the  joining  together  of 
the  benefice  and  vassalage. 


THE    FEUDAL    SYSTEM  205 

Originally  neither  of  these  primitive  Roman  institu- 
tions had,  as  it  would  seem,  any  especially  military  char- 
acter. And  this  is,  with  an  insignificant  modification,  as 
true  of  the  Merovingian  as  of  the  Roman  period.  In 
such  troubled  times,  however,  as  those  which  brought 
these  institutions  into  use,  military  service  would  cer- 
tainly be  one  of  the  most  frequent  services  needed  from 
such  dependants,  and  apparently  some  of  them  at  least 
were  constantly  employed  as  an  armed  force,  but  there 
was,  during  the  earlier  period,  no  necessary  connection 
of  this  mihtary  service  with  these  relationships  either 
of  person  or  of  land.  The  first  beginnings  of  this  con- 
nection were  made  at  the  opening  of  the  Carolingian  age 
under  Charles  Martel;  the  completion  of  it — the  estab- 
lishment of  military  service  as  the  almost  indispensable 
rule  in  feudalism — was  hardly  accomplished  before  the 
period  ends. 

The  occasion  which  led  to  the  beginning  of  this  change 
was  the  Arabian  attack  on  Gaul,  and  the  necessity  of 
forming  a  cavalry  force  to  meet  it.^  Originally  the 
Franks  had  fought  on  foot.  But  the  Arabs  were  on 
horseback,  and  their  sudden  raids,  which  continued  in 
south  Gaul  long  after  the  battle  of  Tours,  could  not  be 
properly  met,  and  the  defeated  enemy  properly  pursued, 
without  the  use  of  horse.  But  this  was  putting  a  heavy 
burden  of  expense  on  the  citizen,  who  armed  and  sup- 
ported himself,  and  who  was  already  severely  oppressed 
by  the  conditions  of  the  service.  The  state  must  aid 
him  to  bear  it.     This  it  could  do  only  by  grants  of  land. 

The  first  Carolingian  princes  had,  however,  but  scanty 
resources  in  this  direction.  The  royal  domains  had  been 
exhausted  under  the  Merovingian  kings.  Their  own  house 
possessions,  though  very  extensive,  would  not  go  far  to- 

*  See  Brunner,  Der  Reiterdienst  und  die  Anfange  des  Lehnwesens,  in  the 
Zeilschrifl  der  Savigny-Stiflung  fur  Redds geschichle,  Germanistische  Abtheil- 
ung,  vol.  VIII,  1-383   also  in  his  Forschiingen,  pp.  39-74. 


206  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

wards  meeting  the  needs  of  a  family,  gradually  usurp- 
ing the  royal  power,  and  so  in  need  of  means  to  purchase 
faithful  support.  They  lay,  besides,  in  Austrasia,  at  a 
distance  from  the  country  which  was  in  especial  need  of 
defence.  There  was  in  the  case  but  one  resource  open 
— the  extensive  lands  of  the  church,  amounting,  in  some 
parts  of  the  kingdom,  to  one-third  of  the  territory. 

It  had  long  been  the  custom  for  the  state  to  make  use 
of  church  lands,  a  bit  here  and  there,  to  meet  some  spe- 
cial need;  but  now,  in  the  face  of  this  great  necessity, 
there  was,  seemingly,  a  more  extensive  confiscation,  for 
which  Charles  Martel  secured  an  evil  place  in  the  mem- 
ory of  the  church.  It  was  not,  however,  a  confiscation  in 
form,  and  his  successors  succeeded  in  making  a  definite 
arrangement  with  the  church,  regulating  and  sanction- 
ing, in  a  limited  way,  this  use  of  church  lands.  The 
precaricB  furnished  a  convenient  tenure  for  the  purpose. 
By  it  the  ownership  of  the  church  was,  in  form,  pre- 
served by  the  payment  of  a  small  fee,  while  the  use  of 
the  land  passed  to  the  appointee  of  the  king.  These 
grants  became  technically  known  in  the  church  records, 
during  this  brief  transitional  period,  as  precaria  verbo  regis, 
grants  made  at  the  royal  command.  As  the  object  was 
to  maintain  a  cavalry  force,  the  prince  bestowed  these 
grants  of  land  upon  his  vassals  who  were  bound  to  him 
by  a  personal  bond  of  especial  fidehty  and  service,  and 
who  were  to  be  enabled,  by  the  additional  income  secured 
them  by  the  grant,  to  furnish  mounted  soldiers  to  the 
army.  They  divided  the  land  among  their  own  vassals 
upon  the  same  terms.  It  was  at  this  time  also  that  the 
word  "  benefice  "  came  into  gradual  use  for  the  land  granted. 

In  this  way  the  first  steps  were  taken  towards  uniting 
these  two  institutions  into  a  single  one,  and  towards  in- 
troducing the  special  obligation  of  mihtary  service  as  a 
condition  on  which  the  land  was  held.  But  it  must  not  be 
understood  that  the  process  was  by  any  means  completed 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  207 

as  yet.     It  was  a  very  slow  and  a  very  gradual  change, 
extending  throughout  the  whole  CaroHngian  period. 

The  efforts  which  were  made  by  Charlemagne  to  re- 
form, or  rather  to  enforce,  the  military  system  of  the 
kingdom,  had  a  very  important  influence  in  the  same 
direction.  With  the  growth  in  size  of  the  Frankish  Em- 
pire, requiring  campaigns  at  such  great  distances  and 
almost  constantly,  their  original  military  system  of  un- 
paid service  from  all  the  freemen,  which  was  common 
to  all  the  German  tribes,  had  come  to  be  a  serious  burden 
upon  the  Franks.  Indeed,  the  poorer  citizens,  who  could 
no  longer  bear  it,  were  striving  to  escape  from  it  in  every 
possible  way,  and  the  armies  threatened  to  disappear. 
This  danger  Charlemagne  tried  to  overcome  by  a  series 
of  enactments.  He  allowed  several  of  the  poorer  free- 
men to  unite  in  arming  and  maintaining  one  of  their 
number  in  the  army.  He  directed  that  vassals  of  pri- 
vate individuals  must  perform  military  service  as  the 
vassals  of  the  king  did,  thus  trying  to  hold  to  their  duty 
those  who  had  sought  to  escape  from  it  by  such  an  ar- 
rangement. He  also  ordained  that  the  lord  should  be 
held  responsible  for  the  equipment  and  appearance  in 
the  field  of  his  vassals,  or  should  pay  the  fine  for  their 
failure  to  appear.  Finally,  when  these  measures  proved 
of  no  avail,  he  issued  an  ordinance  which  apparently 
brought  a  great  principle  of  human  nature  to  his  aid  by 
allowing  the  vassals  to  come  into  the  field  under  the 
command  of  their  lords  instead  of  with  the  general  levy 
of  the  country  under  the  count.  The  natural  desire 
of  the  lord  for  influence  and  consideration  would  make 
him  wish  to  appear  at  the  head  of  as  large  and  fine  a 
body  of  vassals  as  possible,  and  the  expedient  seems  to 
have  proved  successful  enough  to  be  adopted  regularly 
in  the  generations  following.  But  the  result  of  it  was 
to  make  the  army  more  and  more  completely  a  feudal 
army,  though  it  seems  certain  that  the  freemen  who  re- 


2o8  MEDIEVAL    CIVILIZATION 

mained  throughout  the  whole  feudal  period  holders  of 
land  and  free  laborers  in  considerable  numbers  outside 
the  feudal  system,  were  never  excused  from  military 
duty,  and  were  summoned  occasionally  to  actual  service. 
Still  the  state  in  the  main  depended  no  longer  upon  citi- 
zens for  its  army,  but  upon  vassals  who  served  as  a  duty 
growing  out  of  their  holding  of  land. 

In  this  way  one  important  duty  of  the  citizen,  that  of 
defending  the  community,  was  transformed  from  a  public 
obligation  into  a  matter  of  private  contract,  and  became 
one  of  the  ordinary  conditions  upon  which  lands  were  held. 

A  like  transformation  took  place  during  this  same  time 
in  regard  to  other  functions  of  the  state — the  judicial,  for 
example — which  also  passed  into  the  hands  of  private 
individuals  and  became  attached  to  the  land.  Thus  the 
great  fiefs  came  to  possess  what  the  French  feudal  law 
called  "justice" — jurisdictio — that  is,  full  sovereignty,  so 
that  the  state  was  practically  excluded  from  all  contact 
with  any  persons  residing  within  the  limits  of  the  fief, 
a  result  which  went  far  beyond  any  development  of  ma- 
norial justice.  The  process  by  which  this  transformation 
was  accomplished,  in  respect  to  the  other  functions  of  the 
state,  is  by  no  means  so  clear  as  it  is  in  the  case  of  the 
military.  In  the  instance,  for  example,  of  the  judicial 
power  of  the  state,  there  is  probably  no  subject  con- 
nected with  the  origin  of  the  feudal  system  which  is  still 
the  subject  of  so  much  controversy,  and  on  which  so 
many  varying  views  are  still  maintained,  as  upon  the 
way  in  which  this  power  passed  into  private  hands. 

The  process  was  undoubtedly  largely  aided  by  the 
"immunities."  These  were  grants  of  privilege  to  churches 
or  to  private  individuals,  by  virtue  of  which  the  ordi- 
nary officers  of  the  state  were  forbidden  all  entry  upon  the 
specified  domain,  and  the  owner  took  the  place  of  the 
officers  in  reference  to  the  state.  This  did  not  at  once 
remove  these  estates  from  the  control  of  the  government. 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  209 

The  landowner  became  independent  of  the  ordinary  of- 
ficers, but  not  of  the  state,  whose  officer  he  became  for 
his  own  land,  though  often  possessing,  instead  of  the 
state,  the  entire  judicial  revenue,  but  it  did  undoubtedly 
favor  the  development  of  private  jurisdiction  and  \'irtual 
independence,  and  probably  in  many  cases  fully  accounts 
for  the  sovereignty  of  the  fief.  The  government,  which 
found  it  so  difficult  during  this  time  to  control  its  own 
officers  and  to  keep  the  functions  of  the  state  in  opera- 
tion by  their  means,  would  often  find  it  entirely  im- 
possible to  prevent  the  great  landowner  who  had  received 
a  grant  of  immunity  from  throwing  off  all  dependence 
upon  the  government  and  setting  up  a  state  of  his  own. 

In  the  case  of  many  fiefs,  however,  no  immunity  ex. 
isted,  and  the  process  must  have  been  a  different  one 
Our  knowledge  of  what  it  actually  was  is  so  shght  that 
almost  every  one  of  the  various  theories  which  have  been 
advanced  to  explain  it  has  some  reasonable  foundation, 
but  the  probability  is  that  in  the  majority  of  cases  it  was, 
in  reality,  a  usurpation. 

The  holder  of  the  fief  was  locally  strong.  He  could 
and  did  maintain  some  real  degree  of  order  and  security. 
It  was  by  virtue  of  this  fact  that  his  power  had  been  de- 
veloped and  continued  to  be  obeyed.  In  theory  the 
state  was  absolute.  It  was  supposed  to  control  almost 
every  detail  of  fife.  And  this  theory  of  the  power  of  the 
state  continued  to  exist  and  to  be  recognized  in  the  days 
of  the  most  complete  feudahsm.  But  actually  the  state 
could  do  nothing.  Its  real  power  was  at  the  opposite 
extreme  from  its  theoretical.  The  conditions  which  had 
favored  the  development  of  those  germs  of  feudalism 
which  existed  under  the  later  empire,  even  where  their 
growth  had  been  in  the  interval  held  in  check,  tended 
to  reappear  after  the  fall  of  the  Carolingian  power. 
The  great  difficulty  of  intercommunication  rendered  it 
impossible  for  the  state  to  bring  its  authority  into  di- 


2IO  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

rect  contact  with  all  parts  of  the  country.  It  had  no 
strong  and  organized  body  of  officers  on  whom  it  could 
depend.  Every  officer,  military  or  administrative,  was 
a  local  magnate  doing  his  best  to  throw  off  the  con- 
trol of  the  state,  and  using  his  official  position,  to  aid 
him  in  this  purpose.  There  was  no  strong  feeling  of 
unity  among  the  people  which  it  could  call  to  its  aid. 
There  were  no  common  feelings  or  ideas  or  interests  which 
bound  the  dweller  at  the  mouth  of  the  Loire  to  the  dweller 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Seine.  Patriotism  and  a  common 
national  feeling  were  wanting.  Everything  was  local  and 
personal.  Even  in  the  church  was  this  the  case  in  the 
tenth  century,  Europe  at  large  hardly  knowing  who  was 
pope  in  Rome,  and  the  common  organization  almost 
falling  to  pieces,  while  in  Rome  itself  the  papacy  sank 
to  its  lowest  point  of  degradation,  a  prey  to  local  faction 
and  made  to  serve  local  interests.  If  this  was  true  of 
the  church,  much  more  was  it  true  of  the  state,  which 
had  no  such  general  organization  and  no  such  basis  of 
common  feelings.  The  sovereign  of  the  moment  had 
only  such  an  amount  of  power  as  he  might  derive  from 
lands  directly  in  his  hands,  that  is,  from  his  own  local 
fief.  The  great  advantage  which  the  first  Capetians  had 
over  their  Carolingian  rivals  was,  as  we  have  seen,  that 
they  had  a  very  strong  local  power  of  this  sort,  while  the 
Carolingians  had  really  none;  but  even  this  power  which 
the  first  Capetians  had  was  not  enough  to  enable  them  to 
exercise  the  functions  of  a  real  government  within  the 
other  large  fiefs.  Certainly  there  was  no  such  power  in 
the  hands  of  the  later  Carolingians.  These  functions, 
which  the  government  was  powerless  to  exercise,  fell  nat- 
urally into  the  hands  of  the  local  magnate  and  were 
exercised  by  him. 

Sometimes  it  was  a  real  usurpation,  the  baron  assum- 
ing and  continuing  offices  which  the  state  should  have 
discharged.     More  often,  no  doubt,  it  was  a  transforma- 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  211 

tion  of  duties  which  the  state  had  once  lodged  in  his 
hands,  as  an  immunity.,  perhaps,  or  in  making  him  its 
own  administrative  officer,  duke  or  count,  a  transforma- 
tion of  such  a  sort  that  the  baron  no  longer  performed 
these  functions  as  a  representative  of  the  state,  but  by 
virtue  of  his  own  property  right,  and  the  persons  living 
within  his  domain,  fulfilled  these  duties,  no  longer  as 
obligations  due  to  the  state,  but  as  personal  duties  due 
to  their  immediate  lord.  Among  these  there  would  usu- 
ally be  vassals  of  his  whose  ancestors  had  dwelt  in  the 
county  when  his  ancestors  were  counts  by  the  king's 
appointment,  and  really  represented  the  government. 
In  those  days  they  had  attended  the  count's  court  as 
citizens  discharging  a  public  duty.  In  every  intervening 
generation  the  same  court  had  been  held  and  attended, 
undergoing  no  pronounced  change  at  any  one  time.  But 
in  the  end  it  had  been  entirely  transformed,  and  in  at- 
tending it  now  the  descendants  of  the  earlier  citizens 
were  meeting  a  private  obligation  into  which  they  had 
entered  as  vassals  of  a  lord. 

The  local  public  court,  no  doubt,  in  being  thus  trans- 
formed into  a  private  court,  by  the  usurpation  of  the 
baron  or  by  the  grant  of  the  king,  retained  its  funda- 
mental principles  unchanged.  The  vassals  came  together 
to  form  the  court,  as  formerly  the  citizens  had  done, 
accompanied  by  such  free  citizens  of  the  district  as  might 
still  remain  outside  the  vassal  relations.  They  made  the 
judgment  of  the  court  by  common  consent,  as  had  the 
earlier  Teutonic  court,  and  they  adopted,  by  general 
agreement,  measures  of  the  character  of  local  legislation, 
as  the  older  local  assembly  had  done  whose  place  they 
had  taken.  But,  in  relation  to  the  pubHc  authority  of 
the  state,  the  transformation  was  a  great  one,  and  the 
whole  point  of  view  had  been  changed.^ 

>  A  local  public  court,  particularly  of  the  smaller  territorial  units,  un- 
doubtedly in  some  cases  passed  into  private  possession  through  a  develop- 


212  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

The  geographical  extent  of  territory,  subject  in  this  way 
to  the  lord's  "justice,"  would  depend  upon  a  great  va- 
riety of  circumstances  largely  peculiar  to  each  case;  cer- 
tainly it  depended,  only  in  the  most  remote  way,  upon 
any  act  of  the  nominal  sovereign's.  The  most  decisive 
of  these  circumstances  would  be  the  personal  ability  of 
the  successive  generations  of  lords,  their  success  in  pre- 
serving some  considerable  amount  of  order  and  security, 
and  making  their  government  really  respected  over  a 
larger  or  smaller  area,  and  their  success  in  compelling 
outlying  landholders  of  less  strength  to  recognize  their 
supremacy.  If  they  were  good  organizers  and  strong 
fighters,  especially  the  last,  their  lands  were  constantly 
enlarging,  until  they  reached  the  boundaries  of  other 
territories  which  had  been  formed  in  the  same  way.  If 
they  were  undecided  and  weak,  their  subjects  and  their 
rivals  took  speedy  advantage  of  it.  Vassals  lost  no  op- 
portunity to  throw  off  their  dependence  and  assume  for 
themselves  the  rights  of  sovereignty,  and  neighboring 
great  barons  did  not  hesitate  to  entice  or  to  force  a  rival's 
vassals  to  change  their  allegiance,  and  thus  to  enlarge 
their  own  lands  at  their  rival's  expense.  When  the  feudal 
system  and  the  feudal  law  became  more  definitely  fixed, 
these  things  became  less  frequent,  but  they  never  entirely 
ceased,  and  the  days  of  formative  feudalism  were  times 
when  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  reigned  su- 
preme. 

As  the  starting-point  of  such  a  feudal  territory  there 
was  often,  not  a  fief,  but  an  estate  of  allodial  land,  that 
is,  land  which  the  original  owner  had  held  in  fee  simple 
and  not  as  a  benefice  from  some  lord.  There  was  always 
present  in  feudal  times,  also,  a  strong  tendency  to  turn 

ment  of  manorial  jurisdiction  as  described  above,  though  in  such  a  transfer 
the  immunity  was  often  not  without  influence.  A  third  kind  of  court,  the 
feudal  proper,  composed  of  vassals  primarily  and  acting  upon  feudal  ques- 
tions chiefly,  further  complicates  the  judicial  situation.  In  an  account 
which  is  considering  general  poHtical  conditions  it  may  be  disregarded. 


THE   FEUDAL    SYSTEM  213 

benefices  into  allodial  land,  that  is,  for  the  vassal  to 
throw  off  all  semblance  of  dependence  upon  his  lord,  and 
become  independent,  acknowledging  in  many  cases  not 
even  a  theoretical  dependence  upon  any  one,  the  state 
itself  included.  Such  allodial  lands,  of  whatever  origin, 
might  be  just  as  thoroughly  feudal  in  their  internal  organ- 
ization as  any  other,  and,  if  large  enough,  always  were, 
that  is,  they  were  subdivided  among  vassals,  and  gov- 
erned and  regulated  according  to  feudal  principles,  but 
the  feudal  law  generally  recognized  their  independence 
of  outside  control.  Examples  of  such  lands  are  those 
which  the  German  feudal  law  styled  "sun  fiefs,"  fiefs 
held  of  the  sun,  and,  in  France,  those  of  a  part  of  the 
counts  and  others  who  styled  themselves  "counts  by  the 
grace  of  God."  In  many  cases  pretensions  of  this  sort 
were  not  made  good  against  the  growing  strength  of  the 
government;  in  others  they  were,  and  the  little  states 
were  distinctly  recognized  by  the  general  government 
as  independent  sovereignties.  The  little  kingdom  of 
Yvetot,  whose  memory  has  been  preserved  in  literature, 
is  the  case  of  a  fief  which  became  independent,  and 
the  little  territory  of  Boisbelle-Henrichemont,  in  central 
France,  maintained  a  recognized  independence  until  1766, 
v/hen  the  last  seigneur  sold  his  state  to  the  king. 

In  general,  from  the  tenth  to  the  beginning  at  least  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  the  political  aspect  of  western 
Europe  was  thoroughly  feudal,  and  even  in  those  parts 
of  the  country  where  allodial  lands  largely  predominated, 
as,  for  example,  in  central  France,  the  state  was  as  weak 
as  elsewhere,  and  the  real  government  as  completely 
local.  The  small  allodial  proprietor,  not  strong  enough 
to  usurp  for  himself  the  right  of  "justice,"  was  subject 
to  the  "justice"  of  the  feudal  lord  of  the  locality,  and 
sometimes  even  to  the  payment  of  dues  that  were  dis- 
tinctly feudal,  though  he  might  not  be  forced  into  the 
position  of  a  full  vassal. 


2l4  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

We  have  endeavored  to  present  in  this  sketch,  as  fully 
as  possible  in  the  space  at  our  command,  the  rise  of  the 
feudal  system.  Comparatively  insignificant  practices,  of 
private  and  illegal  origin,  which  had  arisen  in  the  later 
Roman  Empire,  and  which  were  continued  in  the  early 
Prankish  kingdom,  had  been  developed,  under  the  pres- 
sure of  public  need,  into  a  great  political  organization  ex- 
tending over  the  whole  West,  and  virtually  supplanting 
the  national  government.  The  public  need  which  had 
made  this  development  necessary  was  the  need  of  secu- 
rity and  protection.  Men  had  been  obliged  to  take  refuge 
in  the  feudal  castle,  because  the  power  of  the  state  had 
broken  down.  This  breakdown  of  the  state,  its  failure 
to  discharge  its  ordinary  functions,  was  not  so  much  due 
to  a  lack  of  personal  ability  on  the  part  of  the  king,  as  to 
the  circumstances  of  the  time,  and  to  the  inability  of 
the  ruling  race  as  a  whole  to  rise  above  them.  The  dif- 
ficulty of  intercommunication,  the  breakdown  of  the  old 
military  and  judicial  organization,  partly  on  account  of 
this  difficulty,  thus  depriving  the  state  of  its  two  hands, 
the  lack  of  general  ideas  and  common  feelings  and  in- 
terests, seen  for  example  in  the  scanty  commerce  of  the 
time,  the  almost  total  absence,  in  a  word,  of  all  the 
sources  from  which  every  government  must  draw  its  life 
and  strength,  this  general  condition  of  society  was  the 
controlling  force  which  created  the  feudal  system.  The 
Germans,  in  succeeding  to  the  empire  of  Rome,  had  in- 
herited a  task  which  was  as  yet  too  great  for  the  most 
of  them,  Merovingian  and  Carolingian  alike.  Only  by  a 
long  process  of  experience  and  education  were  they  to 
succeed  in  understanding  its  problems  and  mastering  its 
difficulties.  This  is  only  saying  in  a  new  form  what  we 
have  before  said  in  other  connections,  that  the  coming  in 
of  the  Germans  must  of  necessity  have  been  followed  by 
a  temporary  decline  of  civihzatlon.  This  was  just  as  true 
of  government  and  political  order  as  of  everything  else,  and 


THE    FEUDAL    SYSTEM  21$ 

the  feudal  system  is  merely,  in  politics,  what  the  miracle 
lives  and  scholasticism  are  in  Hterature  and  science. 

These  last  paragraphs  have,  perhaps,  given  some  idea 
of  the  condition  of  things  in  the  completely  feudalized 
state,  and  of  the  character  of  feudalism  as  a  political  or- 
ganization. 

The  perfected  form  which  the  lawyers  finally  gave  to 
the  feudal  theory  as  a  matter  of  land  law  and  of  social 
rank  is  undoubtedly  the  source  of  the  f>opular  idea  that 
the  feudal  system  was  a  much  more  definitely  arranged 
and  systematized  organization  than  it  ever  was  in  prac- 
tice. Among  us  Blackstone's  Commentaries  are  proba- 
bly, more  than  any  other  single  source,  responsible  for 
this  impression,  as  they  are  for  other  ideas  of  history 
which  are  not  altogether  correct.  He  says,  speaking  of 
the  introduction  of  feudahsm  as  a  result  of  the  Norman 
conquest: 

"This  new  polity  therefore  seems  not  to  have  been  im- 
posed by  the  conqueror,  but  nationally  and  freely  adopted 
by  the  general  assembly  of  the  whole  realm,  in  the  same 
manner  as  other  nations  of  Europe  had  before  adopted 
it,  upon  the  same  principle  of  self-security,  and,  in  par- 
ticular, they  had  the  recent  example  of  the  French  na- 
tion before  their  eyes,  which  had  gradually  surrendered, 
up  all  its  allodial  or  free  lands  into  the  king's  hands,  who 
restored  them  to  the  owners  as  a  beneficium  or  feud,  to 
be  held  to  them  and  such  of  their  heirs  as  they  previously 
nominated  to  the  king,  and  thus  by  degrees  all  the  allo- 
dial estates  in  France  were  converted  into  feuds,  and 
the  freemen  became  the  vassals  of  the  crown.  The  only 
difference  between  this  change  of  tenure  in  France  and 
that  in  England,  was,  that  the  former  was  efi'ected  grad- 
ually, by  the  consent  of  private  persons;  the  latter  was 
done  all  at  once,  all  over  England,  by  the  common  con- 
sent of  the  nation." 


210  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  no  such  facts  as  these  ever 
occurred,  either  in  France  or  in  England,  but  the  lawyers 
certainly  did  form  such  a  theory  as  this  of  the  feudal 
state,  and  from  its  influence  came  the  popular  notion  of 
what  sort  of  an  organization  the  feudal  state  was. 

According  to  this  theory  the  king  is  vested  with  the 
ownership  of  all  the  soil  of  the  kingdom.  But,  like  the 
private  owner  of  a  vast  estate,  he  cannot  cultivate  it  all 
under  his  own  immediate  direction.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  has  certain  great  expenses  to  meet,  and  public  func- 
tions to  perform,  by  virtue  of  his  position  as  the  head 
of  the  state.  He  must  provide  for  defence  against  the 
national  enemies,  he  must  determine  and  enforce  the 
laws,  provide  a  currency,  maintain  the  highways,  and  so 
on.  The  resources  to  enable  him  to  meet  these  obliga- 
tions must  be  derived  from  the  land  of  the  kingdom 
which  he  owns.  Accordingly  he  parcels  out  the  kingdom. 
into  a  certain  number  of  large  divisions,  each  of  which 
he  grants  to  a  single  man,  who  gives  a  peculiarly  binding 
promise  to  assume  a  certain  specified  portion  of  these 
public  obligations  in  return  for  the  land  which  is  granted 
him.  So  long  as  he  fulfils  these  duties  he  continues  to 
hold  the  lands,  and  his  heirs  after  him  on  the  same  terms. 
If  he  refuses  to  meet  his  obligations,  or  neglects  them, 
the  king  may  resume  his  lands  and  grant  them  to  some 
more  faithful  vassal.  Together,  these  men  constitute  the 
great  barons,  or  grand  feudatories,  or  peers  of  the  king- 
dom, and  by  their  united  services  the  state  gets  its  busi- 
ness performed. 

In  the  same  way  these  great  barons  divide  their  land 
among  vassals,  whose  united  services  enable  them  to 
meet  their  obligations  to  the  king.  These  vassals  sub- 
divide again,  by  a  like  process  of  "subinfeudation,"  and 
so  on  down  to  the  knight's  fee,  or  lowest  subdivision  of 
the  feudal  system — a  piece  of  land  large  enough  to  sup- 
port and  arm  a  single  warrior  of  noble  condition. 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  217 

There  is,  undoubtedly,  a  general  correspondence  of 
this  theory  to  the  actual  facts  which  prevailed  from  the 
tenth  century  on.  Public  duties  were  almost  wholly 
transformed  into  private  services.  The  state  did  depend, 
to  a  very  large  extent,  upon  the  holders  of  land  for  the 
performance  of  its  functions.  The  land  of  the  kingdom 
did  tend  to  become  feudal,  held  by  vassals  upon  a  ten- 
ure of  service,  and  there  was  a  tendency  in  the  feudal 
system  to  develop  into  a  hierarchical  organization  of 
regulated  grades,  from  the  king  down  to  the  smallest 
noble. 

But  not  one  of  these  tendencies  was  completely  realized 
in  the  actual  feudalism  of  any  country  of  Europe,  and 
there  never  was  anywhere  such  a  regular  organization  as 
the  theory  supposes.  It  is  perfectly  easy  to  see,  from  the 
way  in  which  the  feudal  system  came  into  existence,  its 
long  and  slow  growth  by  private  arrangements  to  meet 
local  needs,  that  it  could  have  no  settled  and  uniform 
constitution,  even  for  its  general  features,  and  for  minor 
details  it  could  have  no  general  system  of  law  with  fixed 
rules  which  prevailed  everywhere. 

Its  law  must  be  purely  customary  law,  formed  by  each 
locality  for  itself,  its  rules  determined  by  the  local  cus- 
toms and  usages  which  had  grown  into  precedents.  It 
was  not  the  result  of  general  legislation,  indeed  it  may 
be  said  that,  during  the  feudal  period  proper  there  was 
scarcely  such  a  thing  as  formal  legislation  of  the  modern 
sort.  We  have,  therefore,  no  general  feudal  law,  but  we 
have  a  thousand  local  systems  of  law,  having  certain 
general  features  alike,  but  differing  more  or  less  widely 
from  one  another  on  matters  of  detail.  Even  such  gen- 
eral codes  as  the  Assises  de  Jerusalem  or  the  Libri  Feudo- 
rum  are  not  merely  now  and  then  at  variance  with  one 
another  on  important  points,  but  they  are  in  some  re- 
spects theoretical  treatises,  embodying  an  ideal  law  rather 
than  stating  practices  which  were  widely  in  force.     The 


2l8  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

general  use  into  which  some  of  these  codes  came  in  the 
hands  of  the  lawyers,  after  there  began  to  be  professional 
lawyers,  tended  to  create  a  uniformity  of  practice  which 
had  not  existed  earher;  but  this  was  only  from  the  thir- 
teenth century  on,  when  in  most  countries  feudahsm  was 
losing  its  political  significance  and  was  passing  into  a 
mere  system  of  land  law  and  of  social  rank.^ 

In  the  days  when  feudahsm  was  at  its  height  as  a 
pohtical  organization,  the  way  in  which  the  lord's  court 
settled  a  particular  question,  or  in  which  private  agree- 
ment regulated  a  particular  service,  was  final,  and  the 
custom  thus  formed  in  the  locahty  became  the  law  for 
that  locahty.  These  decisions  and  regulations  might, 
and  did,  difler  greatly  in  different  places.  Says  Beau- 
manoir,  one  of  the  thirteenth-century  lawyers,  whose 
Coutumes  de  Beauvaisis  became  one  of  the  law  books  in 
general  use:  ''There  are  not  two  castellanies  in  France 
which  use  the  same  law  in  every  case."  ^  Indeed,  it  is 
hardly  too  much  to  say  that  there  was  no  uniformity 
of  practice  even  in  the  most  general  features  of  the  sys- 
tem. 

There  was  nowhere  any  series  of  great  baronies  which 
covered  the  area  of  a  kingdom.^  The  lands  held  by  the 
twelve  so-called  peers  of  France  by  no  means  made  up 
the  whole  of  that  country.  Some  fiefs,  not  ranked  among 
these,  were  as  large  or  larger,  like  the  county  of  Anjou 
or  the  county  of  Brittany.  Some  of  the  peers  held  only 
a  portion  of  their  land  of  the  king.     The  count  of  Cham- 

'  The  most  permanent  in  influence  of  all  the  feudal  law  books,  the  Lom- 
bard feudal  code,  or  the  Libri  Feudonim,  reflects  in  its  numerous  repeti- 
tions and  confused  character  the  local  and  customary  growth  of  the  feudal 
law.  It  was  not  made  after  the  usual  method  of  code  formation,  the  cutting 
out  of  repetitions  and  superfluous  passages.  It  is  not  properly  a  code  at 
all,  but  is  a  collection  of  various  local  customs  and  of  the  opinions  of  law- 
yers brought  together  by  a  gradual  series  of  accretions. 

^  Vol.  I,  p.  14,  Ed.  Bc^ugnot;   I,  p.  5,  Ed.  Salmon. 

'  For  an  interesting  brief  statement  of  conflicting  practices  in  feudalism, 
see  the  note  on  p.  213  of  the  text  of  Longnon's  Atlas  Historiqtie  de  la  France. 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  219 

pagne  was  the  king's  vassal  for  only  a  fraction  of  his 
lands.  His  great  territory  was  a  complex,  brought  to- 
gether into  a  single  hand,  and  held  of  nine  suzerains  be- 
sides the  king,  of  seven  ecclesiastical  lords,  the  German 
emperor,  and  the  duke  of  Burgundy.  The  king  granted 
fiefs  of  every  size,  and  had  vassals  of  every  rank  and  title, 
and  many  subvassals  of  others  held  small  fiefs  directly 
from  the  king.  In  Germany  the  number  of  very  small 
fiefs  held  immediately  of  the  emperor  was  great.  Su- 
zerains also,  even  kings  and  emperors,  held  fiefs  of  their 
own  vassals.  The  same  homage,  for  the  same  fief,  might 
be  paid  to  two  lords  at  the  same  time,  or  a  fief  might  be 
held  by  two  or  more  vassals.  Not  merely  land,  but  all 
sorts  of  tilings  having  value — offices,  tolls,  and  privileges 
— were  made  into  fiefs,  and  the  variations  of  form  and 
character  in  fiefs  were  almost  infinite.  And  yet  portions 
of  the  land  in  most  kingdoms  remained  allodial,  and  were 
never  held  under  any  actual  feudal  tenure. 

Gradations  of  rank  in  the  nobility  came  to  be  regular 
and  definite  in  later  times,  but  they  were  not  so  when 
feudalism  was  supreme,  and  the  size  or  importance  of 
the  fief  by  no  means  determined  its  title  and  rank.  Vis- 
counts had  counts  as  vassals.  Some  mere  lordships  were 
as  large  as  the  fiefs  held  by  counts,  and  for  a  fief  to  change 
its  title,  while  remaining  the  same  itself,  was  of  very 
frequent  occurrence,  as  in  the  case  of  the  county  of  Brit- 
tany which  became  a  duchy. 

In  general,  we  may  say  that  the  feudal  system  was 
confusion  roughly  organized,  and  it  would  be  impossible 
within  these  limits,  even  if  our  plan  permitted,  to  give 
any  satisfactory  idea  of  its  details.  It  is  doubtful  if  it 
would  be  possible,  within  any  reasonable  limits,  to  give 
a  detailed  account  of  feudal  usages  which  would  not  con- 
vey a  wrong  impression,  or  which  would  be  true  of  more 
than  limited  regions. 

Besides  these  differences  of  detail,  the  national  feudal 


2  20  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

systems,  which  took  shape  in  the  different  countries  of 
Europe,  differed  more  or  less  widely  from  one  another 
in  many  points  of  general  constitution.  The  history  of 
feudalism  runs  a  different  course  in  the  various  states, 
and  the  permanent  influence  which  it  exercised  on  na- 
tional institutions  and  history  is  distinct  for  each,  as  will 
be  evident  when  the  formation  of  the  modern  nations  is 
reached. 

It  is  clear  that  a  system  of  this  sort  would  be  a  seri- 
ous obstacle  to  the  reconstruction  of  a  strong  and  consoli- 
dated state.  It  is  a  fact  still  more  familiar  to  us  that 
the  legal  and  social  privileges,  the  shadow  of  a  once  dom- 
inant feudalism,  which  the  state  allowed  to  remain  or 
was  forced  to  tolerate,  secured  for  it  a  universal  popular 
hatred  and  condemnation.  But  these  facts  ought  not 
to  obscure  for  us  the  great  work  which  fell  to  the  share 
of  feudalism  in  the  general  development  of  civilization. 
The  preceding  account  should  have  given  some  indica- 
tion, at  least,  of  what  this  work  was.  The  feudal  castle, 
torn  to  pieces  by  the  infuriated  mob  of  revolted  peasants, 
as  the  shelter  of  tyrannous  privileges,  was  originally  built 
by  the  wilHng  and  anxious  labor  of  their  ancestors  as 
their  only  refuge  from  worse  evils  than  the  lord's  op- 
pression. 

We  have  seen,  earlier,  the  great  danger  which  threat- 
ened the  political  unity  which  Rome  had  established  in 
the  West  in  consequence  of  the  German  invasions;  how 
they  threatened  to  break  up  the  Western  Empire  into 
separate  and  unconnected  fragments;  and  how  the  in- 
fluence of  the  church  and  of  the  idea  of  Rome  availed 
to  keep  up  some  general  consciousness  of  unity,  and  of 
a  common  whole  to  which  they  all  belonged.  But  these 
influences,  however  strong  in  maintaining  an  ideal  union 
of  states,  could  hardly  be  of  much  value  within  the  bounds 
of  the  separate  states.     The  same  causes  of  separation, 


THE    FEUDAL    SYSTEM  221 

however,  were  at  work  there.  There  were  so  few  com- 
mon bonds  between  them  that  it  was  as  hard  for  the  in- 
habitants of  the  different  parts  of  Gaul  to  keep  alive  any- 
real  feeHng  of  national  unity,  as  it  was  for  them  to  realize 
any  common  relationship  with  the  men  of  Italy.  As  the 
central  governments  of  the  different  states  succumbed 
more  and  more  to  the  difficulties  of  their  situation,  and 
became  more  and  more  powerless  to  exercise  any  actual 
control  at  a  distance  from  the  court,  the  danger  was 
great  and  real  that  the  state  would  fall  apart  into  httle 
fragments  owning  no  common  allegiance,  and  that  the 
advanced  poHtical  organization  which  civilization  had 
reached  would  dissolve  again  into  the  original  elements 
from  which  it  had  formerly  been  constructed — that  Gaul, 
for  example,  would  revert  to  the  condition  from  which 
the  Romans  had  rescued  it.  From  this  danger  Europe 
was  saved  by  the  feudal  system. 

Feudalism  is  a  form  of  political  organization  which 
allows  the  state  to  separate  into  as  minute  fragments 
as  it  will,  virtually  independent  of  one  another  and  of 
the  state,  without  the  total  destruction  of  its  own  life 
with  which  such  an  experience  would  seem  to  threaten 
every  general  government. 

When  we  look  at  the  actual  condition  of  things  in  a 
feudal  state,  its  anarchy  and  confusion,  we  can  hardly 
see  how  it  would  be  possible  for  disintegration  to  go  far- 
ther,, or  the  destruction  of  the  government  of  the  state 
to  be  more  complete.  And  yet  there  is  an  enormous 
difference  between  a  society  which  has  thrown  off  all 
common  bonds,  and  actually  broken  into  fragments  that 
are  wholly  isolated,  and  another  in  which,  however  frag- 
mentary in  appearance,  a  lively  and  constantly  recog- 
nized theory  keeps  in  remembrance  the  rights  and  pre- 
rogatives of  the  central  government,  and  asserts  without 
ceasing  that  there  is  a  vital  bond  of  union  between  all 
the  fragments. 


222  MEDIEVAL    CIVILIZATION 

It  was  this  that  feudalism  did.  It  was  an  arrange- 
ment suited  to  crude  and  barbarous  times,  by  which  an 
advanced  political  organization  belonging  to  a  more  or- 
derly ci\-ilization  might  be  carried  through  such  times 
without  destruction,  though  unsuited  to  them,  and  likely 
to  perish  if  left  to  its  own  resources.  There  is  no  inten- 
tion of  asserting  in  this  proposition  that  such  a  system  is 
ideally  the  best  way  to  accomplish  this  result,  or  that 
it  could  not  have  been  done,  perhaps  with  less  time  and 
expense,  by  some  other  expedient,  but  only  that  this  is 
what  it  did  do  historically,  and  possibly  further  that  the 
general  history  of  the  world  shows  it  to  be  a  natural 
method  in  similar  cases. 

The  phrase  of  Hegel,  that  the  feudal  system  was  a 
protest  of  barbarism  against  barbarism,  and  that  of 
Henri  Martin,  that  it  concealed  in  its  bosom  the  weapons 
with  which  it  would  be  itself  one  day  smitten,  are  strictly 
accurate.^  It  kept  ahve  the  theory  of  the  state,  with  the 
king  at  its  head,  in  the  possession  of  almost  absolute 
rights  and  prerogatives. 

And  this  was  never  completely  reduced  to  the  condi- 
tion of  a  mere  theory;  for  themselves  the  kings  seem 
never  to  have  recognized,  in  the  worst  days,  the  claims 
to  independence  which  the  great  nobles  advanced,  and 
many  circumstances — accident,  the  rivalry  of  one  baron 
with  another,  the  d\dng  out  of  a  hne,  a  dispute  between 
vassal  and  lord — presented  opportunities  for  interference 
of  which  even  the  weakest  kings  availed  themselves,  and 
so  added  to  theory  something  in  the  way  of  actual  fact, 

^  Is  this  a  characteristic  of  every  phase  in  the  political  development  of 
the  race?  I  translate  the  following  suggestive  sentence  of  M.  Monod's 
from  the  Revue  Historique,  vol.  XLIII,  p.  95:  "As  we  can  follow  through 
the  feudal  epoch  the  development  of  the  monarchical  idea  which  was  to 
destroy  feudalism,  and  as  we  can  follow  across, the  monarchical  epoch  the 
development  of  the  national  idea  which  was  to  throw  dynastic  interests 
back  into  the  second  place,  so  we  can  follow  across  the  history  of  the  last 
two  centuries  the  development  of  economic  and  industrial  interests,  the 
social  idea,  which  is  destined  to  overthrow  the  national." 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  223 

When  we  reach  the  point  where  there  was  the  most  com- 
plete recognition  by  the  kings  of  feudal  law  and  pri\'i- 
leges,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  we  are  already  at  the 
time  when  they  were  seriously  undermining  the  feudal 
power. ^  The  work  of  doing  this,  and  of  recreating  a 
central  authority,  was  merely  the  process  of  putting  into 
actual  exercise  prerogatives  which  feudalism  had  con- 
tinued to  recognize  as  existing,  though  not  allowing  in 
action.  It  was  simply  the  successful  effort  to  turn  the- 
ories into  facts. 

Feudahsm  had  hardly  reached  its  height,  and  drawn 
all  society  into  its  forms,  when  conditions  began  to  pre- 
vail which  made  it  possible  for  a  general  government  to 
exist  for  the  whole  state,  and  to  make  its  power  felt  and 
obeyed  in  distant  localities.  The  moment  that  these 
conditions  came  into  existence,  feudahsm  as  a  poUtical 
system,  and  a  substitute  for  a  central  government,  began 
to  decHne.  As  once  all  things  had  conspired  together  to 
build  it  up  when  it  was  needed,  so  now.  because  its  work 
was  done,  all  things  united  to  pull  it  down.  The  history 
of  its  fall  is  the  history  of  the  formation  of  the  modern 
nations. 

'  Germany  occupies,  as  will  be  seen  later,  a  peculiar  position  in  this  re- 
spect, and  there  feudalism  was  not  overthrown,  as  far  as  the  national  gov- 
ernment is  concerned,  but  reached  its  logical  conclusion  and  destroyed  the 
state.  But  this  was  not  due  to  any  conscious  yielding  to  feudalism  on  the 
part  of  the  sovereign,  nor  to  any  pecuhar  effort  to  realize  in  facts  the  feudal 
theory,  but  entirely  to  outside  influences  which  prevented  the  kings  from 
accomplishing  what  should  have  been  their  natural  wor^,  together  with  a 
survival  of  original  tribal  feeling  not  found  elsewhere.  0^ 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  EMPIRE  AND  THE  PAPACY 

At  a  time  when  the  feudal  system  was  at  its  height, 
that  is,  when  there  was  great  separation  and  local  inde- 
pendence, and  when  the  universal  and  the  common  had 
very  little  power,  the  minds  of  many  men  were  strongly 
held  by  two  theories,  so  general  and  comprehensive  in 
character,  that  it  seems  impossible  that  they  should 
have  existed  at  such  a  time.  And  yet  they  were  con- 
sciously held  by  some,  unconsciously  by  almost  all. 
These  were  the  theories  of  the  Holy  Cathohc  Church,  and 
of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire. 

These  theories  had  their  foundation,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  ideas  which  had  grown  up  in  pagan  Rome — the  ideas 
of  the  divinely  ordained,  eternal,  and  universal  empire. 
These  ideas  the  Christians  adopted.  We  find  traces  of 
them  in  Christian  writers  from  the  first  half  of  the  third 
century  on.  They  found  in  them  an  interpretation  for 
prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament.  But  they  modified 
them,  also,  in  consequence  of  the  new  point  of  view  from 
which  they  regarded  them.  For  the  Christian  the  poht- 
ical  work  of  Rome  was  not  its  great  work — not  the  ul- 
timate end  for"  which  it  had  been  founded.  This  was  to 
be  found  in  the  estabHshment  of  Christianity.  God  had 
allowed  the  universal  and  eternal  political  empire  of 
Rome  to  be  created,  that  in  it  might  be  formed  the  uni- 
versal church,  the  true  Civitas  Dei  of  St.  Augustine. 

There  were,  then,  in  the  plan  of  God  for  history,  these 
two  final  organizations,  distinct  in  sphere,  the  universal 
political  organization,  and  the  universal  religious  organ- 

224 


THE    EMPIRE   A:;D    THE   PAPACY  225 

ization.  The  one  was  realized  in  facts  by  the  Roman 
Empire;  the  other  by  the  Cathohc  church;  and  as  the 
actual  course  of  history  favored  the  continuance  or  the 
revival  of  the  empire,  and  the  more  and  more  definite 
and  perfect  organization  of  the  church  government,  the 
theories  which  they  expressed  grew  in  definiteness  and 
in  their  hold  upon  men.  They  seemed  to  constitute  the 
permanent  plan  of  God  for  history,  and  these  two  powers 
seemed  to  stand  as  the  representatives  of  his  government 
of  the  world.  The  pope  represented  God,  was  his  vicar, 
his  vicegerent,  in  his  rehgious  government  of  mankind, 
the  emperor  in  his  political. 

In  the  case  of  the  ecclesiastical  organization  the  facts 
correspond  somewhat  closely  to  the  theory.  There  was 
such  an  empire,  extending,  not  throughout  the  whole 
of  Christendom,  but  throughout  the  whole  of  orthodox 
Christendom,  which  was  to  the  mind  of  that  time  much 
the  same  thing.  The  whole  Western  world  was  united 
under  a  single  head  in  one  great  religious  state.  To  the 
other  part  of  the  theory  the  facts  did  not  correspond  so 
well.  The.  political  empire  had  a  direct  authority  only 
in  Germany  and  in  Italy,  though  it  cherished  wider  pre- 
tensions, and  though  these  pretensions  were  not  without 
some  recognition  outside  those  countries,  a  recognition, 
however,  mainly  theoretical.  There  was,  'certainly,  in 
both  cases  a  strong  enough  foundation  in  fact  to  lead 
an  ambitious  man,  at  the  head  of  either  of  these  organi- 
zations, to  desire,  and  attempt  to  gain,  a  more  extended 
realization  of  the  theory. 

As  to  the  relation  of  these  two  governments  to  one  an- 
other, the  dividing  line  between  these  two  empires,  there 
was  no  definite  idea.  Each  laid  claim  to  the  very  highest 
and  widest  rights.  Neither  could  exercise  his  power  in 
full,  as  he  understood  it,  without  involving  the  subjection 
of  the  other.  Each  had  historical  facts  to  appeal  to, 
which  seemed   to  imply  the  exercise  of  these  rights  in 


226  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

their  widest  extent,  and  the  submission  of  the  rival  power 
to  them.  But  neither  had  a  clear  case  against  the  other, 
and  neither  was  willing  to  acknowledge  any  inferiority. 

In  such  a  situation  a  conflict  was  inevitable.  As  soon 
as  there  should  come  to  the  head  of  either  church  or  em- 
pire an  able  and  energetic  man,  determined  to  push  his 
claims,  there  was  certain  to  be  a  great  contest,  if  there 
was  at  the  head  of  the  opposing  system,  not  necessarily 
equal  ability,  but  only  determined  resistance.  This  gives 
us  the  elements  of  that  fierce  conflict,  which  plays  so 
large  a  part  in  the  middle  portion  of  medieval  history — 
the  conflict  between  the  papacy  and  the  empire.  It  be- 
gins a  short  time  before  the  first  crusade,  and  extends 
through  the  whole  period  of  the  crusades,  but  with  a 
gradually  changing  character,  so  that  in  its  last  period  it 
is  quite  different,  in  motive  and  purpose,  from  its  open- 
ing stages. 

The  history  of  the  empire  we  have  followed  some- 
what fully  down  to  this  point,  through  its  revival  by 
Charlemagne  as  a  general  empire  of  the  West,  and  its 
second  revival  by  Otto  I  as  a  German  and  Italian  em- 
pire. The  history  of  the  church  we  have  not  looked  at 
with  the  same  fulness. 

In  the  chapter  on  the  early  papacy  we  followed  its 
history  down  to  a  point  where  most  of  the  causes  which 
were  to  transform  it  into  an  imperial  church  were  already 
plainly  at  work.  That  period  of  its  history  closes  nat- 
urally with  the  reign  of  Gregory  I,  at  the  end  of  the 
sixth  century,  the  greatest  of  all  the  early  popes.  He 
defended  the  supremacy  of  the  Roman  church  against 
the  pretensions  of  the  Greek  empire  and  the  Greek  church. 
He  became  in  consequence  of  the  weakness  of  the  East- 
ern emperor  the  virtual  temporal  sovereign  of  Rome  and 
the  surrounding  territory.  He  held  in  check  the  advance 
of  the  Lombards,  increased  the  actual  power  of  the  Roman 
church  in  face  of  the  Arianism  of  Spain  and  Gaul,  re- 


THE   EMPIRE   AND   THE   PAPACY  22/ 

formed  abuses  with  unsparing  hand,  converted  the  Saxon 
kingdoms  and  brought  England  into  close  union  with  the 
papacy,  and  by  the  vigor  of  his  rule  and  the  success  with 
which  he  made  it  respected  in  every  quarter  he  greatly 
strengthened  the  position  of  the  church. 

But  the  future  was  full  of  danger.  It  was  of  the  ut- 
most importance  in  the  development  of  the  monarchical 
church  that  a  reign  of  such  vigor  and  success,  and  one 
which  carried  the  organization  so  far  forward  should 
have  come  just  at  the  time  when  it  did — on  the  eve  of  a 
long  period  of  extremely  unfavorable  conditions,  and 
even  of  acute  danger.  All  the  prestige  and  increased 
strength  which  Gregory's  reign  had  imparted  were  needed 
to  preserve  the  centralization  which  had  been  gained, 
and  to  prevent  the  absorption  of  the  church  in  the  state. 
The  vigorous  but  irregular  advance  of  the  Lombard  state, 
which  threatened  the  absorption  of  the  whole  Italian 
peninsula,  was  a  grave  danger  to  the  papacy.  Its  posi- 
tion as  a  world  power  was  as  seriously  threatened  by  the 
wide-spread  Arianism  of  the  German  states  of  the  west, 
the  Lombards,  the  Burgundians,  and  the  Visigoths  in 
Gaul  and  Spain.  From  these  dangers  it  was  saved  by 
the  alHance  with  the  Franks,  which  was  first  formed  by 
Clovis  and  afterwards  made  still  closer  and  more  effec- 
tive by  the  early  CaroUngian  princes.  The  importance 
of  that  alhance  we  have  already  noticed,  but  it  is  hardly 
possible  to  overstate  its  influence  on  the  future.  If  on 
the  one  side  it  rendered  easy  the  formation  of  the  Frank- 
ish  empire,  the  political  consolidation  for  a  time  of  nearly 
the  whole  of  Christendom,  and  the  incorporation  in  it  of 
Germany,  on  the  other  side  it  seems  as  if  without  it  the 
medieval  church  would  have  been  impossible  and  all  its 
vast  work  for  civilization  left  to  be  far  more  slowly  per- 
formed by  some  other  agency.  Had  the  Franks  become 
Arian  instead  of  Catholic,  the  prestige  and  power  of  the 
pope  must  have  declined,  the  causes  which  gradually  led 


228  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

to  the  conversion  of  the  Arian  states  could  hardly  have 
operated,  and  though  the  Franks  might  have  widened 
their  political  dominions,  they  could  have  received  no 
aid  from  an  imperial  church,  and  there  could  have  been 
no  ready  channel  for  the  influence  of  the  Roman  ideas 
which  they  reproduced. 

While  this  alhance  was  begun  upon  the  political  side, 
and  chiefly  from  poKtical  motives,  it  was  drawn  still 
more  close  and  rendered  permanent  upon  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal side  by  the  work  of  a  great  churchman,  St.  Boniface, 
whose  name  must  be  remembered  among  the  construc- 
tive statesmen  who  created  the  papal  monarchy.  Time 
as  well  as  genius  favored  his  work,  for  it  fell  in  a  form- 
ative period  of  the  utmost  importance,  the  middle  of 
the  eighth  century,  when  the  great  future  possible  for 
them  in  the  poHtical  world  was  just  opening  before  the 
Carolingians,  and  when,  if  ever,  the  hold  of  the  church 
upon  their  empire  must  be  secured.  This  Boniface  did. 
He  was  by  birth  an  Anglo-Saxon,  and  so  trained  in  those 
ideas  of  thorough  devotion  to  the  pope  which  had  been 
characteristic  of  the  English  church  since  its  founding 
under  Gregory,  even  though  the  Anglo-Saxon  states  had 
allowed  to  the  popes  but  little  direct  control  of  ecclesi- 
astical affairs.  In  this  respect  his  labors  upon  the  Conti- 
nent were  a  renewal  and  enlargement  of  Gregory's  work 
for  the  consolidation  of  the  church.  Filled  with  the  mis- 
sionary zeal  of  his  great  predecessor,  which  had  always 
hved  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  church,  he  had  come  from  Eng- 
land to  convert  the  still  pagan  Germans,  but  the  force  of 
his  genius  had  drawn  him  into  ever  wider  and  more  im- 
portant work.  After  a  time  the  organization  of  the 
Frankish  church,  which  was  in  sad  need  of  reformation, 
was  placed  in  his  hands  by  the  sons  of  Charles  Martel, 
and  by  the  pope  that  of  the  German  church  in  the  newly 
converted  lands  held  u^der  the  Franks. 

This  work  was  most  ably  done.     The  Frankish  chuxch 


THE   EMPIRE   AND    THE    PAPACY  229 

was  given  a  more  compact  organization  than  it  had  ever 
before  possessed,  and  the  church  of  Germany  was  created. 
But  more  important  still  was  the  wider  influence  of  this 
work,  for  in  all  its  details  he  carried  into  practice  a 
theory  most  complete,  considering  the  time,  of  the  su- 
premacy of  the  pope  as  the  head  of  the  whole  church 
and  the  source  of  all  authority.  As  a  result,  just  at  the 
moment  when  the  Frankish  kings  were  about  to  become 
the  temporal  sovereigns  of  the  pope  with  a  political  power 
behind  them  which  could  not  be  gainsaid,  not  merely  was 
the  national  church  of  their  people  given  a  stronger  and 
more  independent  organization  as  a  part  of  the  state,  but 
it  was  also  imbued  with  the  idea  of  the  high  and  exalted 
position  held  by  the  pope,  almost  if  not  quite  equal  to 
that  of  the  king.  The  princes  under  whom  he  worked, 
and  their  successor,  Charlemagne,  still  exercised  a  strong 
and  direct  control  over  the  church,  but  that  these  facts 
had  some  influence  in  checking  their  arbitrary  rule  in 
ecclesiastical  matters  is  highly  probable.  That  they  were 
of  decided  force  under  their  weaker  successors  is  more  dis- 
tinctly evident,  and  the  suddenness  with  which  the  church 
springs  into  prominence  and  control  as  soon  as  the  strong 
hand  of  Charlemagne  is  withdrawn  is  a  most  significant 
fact. 

The  consohdation  of  the  Continent  in  the  hands  of 
Charlemagne  was  a  great  advantage  to  the  growing  im- 
perial church  by  giving  it  for  the  moment  a  political 
foundation,  but  it  carried  with  it  a  corresponding  danger. 
The  advance  of  the  Lombard  had  threatened  to  absorb 
the  papacy  in  the  state  and  to  reduce  it  to  the  headship 
of  a  merely  national  church.  From  this  it  was  rescued 
by  the  advance  of  the  Franks,  but  that  now  threatened 
an  equally  complete  absorption.  A  man  of  Charle- 
magne's force  must  dictate  in  ecclesiastical  matters  as 
in  temporal,  and  had  his  power  and  genius  been  per- 
petuated in  his  successors  it  is  hard  to  see  what  could 


230  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

have  saved  the  popes  from  sinking  into  a  position  like 
that  of  the  patriarchs  of  Constantinople,  and  the  real 
control  of  the  church  from  passing  into  the  hands  of  the 
emperors. 

One  precedent,  however,  of  the  utmost  importance  had 
been  estabhshed  in  favor  of  the  papacy  by  the  crowning 
of  Charlemagne  as  emperor  of  Rome.  Whatever  it  may 
have  meant  to  the  men  of  800,  it  was  very  easy  to  make 
it  appear  to  the  men  of  later  times  a  bestowal  of  the 
empire  by  the  gift  of  the  church  and  a  proof  that  the 
pope  was  the  source  of  imperial  right  and  power.  The 
church  never  forgot  a  precedent  of  this  sort,  and  it  did 
effective  service  in  the  age  of  conflict  upon  which  we  are 
entering. 

Whatever  might  have  been  the  fate  of  the  church  had 
Charlemagne's  genius  been  inherited,  the  fact  is  that  his 
successor  was  as  greatly  characterized  by  subserviency 
to  the  church  as  his  father  had  been  by  vigorous  self-will, 
and  the  ninth  century,  when  the  government  of  the 
state  was  daily  growing  weaker,  and  the  whole  Prankish 
empire  falling  to  pieces  is  marked  in  the  history  of  the 
church  by  the  rapid  growth  of  the  power  actually  exer- 
cised by  the  popes,  and  the  still  more  rapid  growth  of 
their  pretensions  to  power. 

At  a  time  about  contemporary  with  Charlemagne  two 
most  remarkable  forgeries  made  their  appearance,  whose 
origin  and  the  purpose  for  which  they  were  originally 
intended  are  uncertain,  but  which  became  of  the  greatest 
service  to  the  papal  cause.  The  first  of  these  in  time  was 
the  so-called  Donation  of  Constantine,  appearing  probably 
in  the  third  quarter  of  the  eighth  century.  According  to 
the  legend,  Constantine,  fatally  ill  of  the  leprosy,  was 
cured  by  a  miracle  through  the  agency  of  Pope  Sylvester 
I,  and  out  of  gratitude  built  a  new  capital  in  the  East 
and  turned  over  by  deed  of  gift  all  his  imperial  rights  and 
prerogatives  over  the  West  to  the  pope.     The  document 


THE   EMPIRE   AND   THE   PAPACY  23 1 

purporting  to  make  this  grant  had  every  appearance  of 
genuineness  to  the  uncritical  sense  of  the  ninth  century. 
It  was  not  merely  general  but  minute  in  its  specifications, 
concerning  even  matters  of  dress  and  regulating  the  rights 
of  the  inferior  clergy  of  Rome.^  It  is  easy  to  see  what 
advantage  could  be  derived  from  it  in  the  contest  with 
the  emperors. 

The  other  forgery  was  a  great  collection  of  ecclesias- 
tical law  documents,  appearing  just  after  the  middle  of 
the  ninth  century  and  pretending  to  be  decretals  of  the 
popes  of  the  first  three  centuries  and  decisions  of  the 
councils  in  which  genuine  and  false,  authentic  and  unau- 
thentic were  mingled  together.  A  collection  of  such  doc- 
uments, not  forged,  had  been  made,  earlier  in  Spain  and 
had  come  into  considerable  use  in  the  church,  and  this 
new  collection  became  confused  with  that,  and  the  name 
of  Isidore  of  Seville,  of  great  authority  in  the  church, 
was  attached  to  it.  It  was,  however,  greatly  enlarged 
in  scope  over  its  predecessors.  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  place  of  its  construction,  probably  somewhere  in 
northern  France,  it  seems  to  have  had  in  view  at  least  ^ 
one  of  its  immediate  objects  to  defend  the  independence 
of  the  bishop  against  the  claims  of  the  archbishop.  In  the 
West  the  only  rival  of  the  papal  power  had  been  the  metro- 
poHtan  jurisdictions.  The  temptation  had  been  very 
strong  for  the  archbishop  to  consolidate  his  power  over 
his  subordinate  bishops  and  to  create  a  little  independent 
ecclesiastical  dominion  by  resisting,  as  far  as  he  could, 
every  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  pope  to  exercise  control 
over  him.  In  a  rivalry  of  this  sort  the  bishops  very  natu- 
rally preferred  the  distant  and  more  widely  occupied  au- 
thority of  the  pope  to  that  of  the  archbishop  near  at  hand, 

'  There  is  a  translation  of  this  deed  of  gift  in  Henderson's  Select  Historical 
Documents  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  document  itself  probably  intended  to 
grant  imperial  rights  only  over  Italy  and  its  islands,  but  the  historical 
interpretation  was  that  given  above. 


232  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

and  immediately  interested  in  every  local  affair.  This 
seems  the  more  likely  motive  which  led  the  author  of  this 
forgery  in  a  series  of  documents  belonging,  in  pretence,  to 
the  earliest  generations  of  Christian  history,  to  exhibit  the 
papacy  in  the  full  possession  and  exercise  of  those  rights 
of  government  over  the  church,  and  of  interference  even 
in  minute  local  concerns  which  had  been  in  reality  only 
very  slowly  developed,  and  which  were  still  practically 
claimed  rather  than  exercised.  But  whatever  may  have 
been  the  motive,  the  effect  was  to  put  into  the  hands  of 
the  popes  documentary  evidence  whose  genuineness  no 
one  was  then  able  to  dispute,  to  prove  that  the  rights 
which  they  were  just  then  vigorously  asserting  had  al- 
ways been  their  prerogative,  and  had  been  recognized 
and  submitted  to  by  the  primitive  church. 

Hardly  were  these  two  documents  in  existence  when  a 
succession  of  able  men  followed  one  another  upon  the 
papal  throne  to  put  to  use  both  these  and  the  opportu- 
nity which  the  falling  Carohngian  government  afforded 
them.  The  first  of  them,  Nicholas  I,  in  his  reign  of 
nearly  ten  years,  from  858  to  867,  carried  through  to  suc- 
cessful issue  an  obstinate  struggle  with  Lothaire  II,  King 
of  Lorraine,  and  compelled  the  archbishop  of  Ravenna, 
and  finally  Hincmar  of  Rheims,  the  ablest  of  all  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  archbishops'  cause  against  the  papacy, 
to  yield  obedience.  The  next  two  popes,  Hadrian  II  and 
John  VIII,  covering  fifteen  years  of  time,  were  not  able  to 
accomplish  as  much  in  the  way  of  actual  results,  but  they 
assumed  an  even  loftier  tone  and  advanced  the  claims 
of  the  papacy  to  the  highest  point,  John  VIII  asserting 
that  the  emperor  owed  his  crown  to  the  pope,  while  the 
emperor  of  the  time,  Charles  the  Bald,  seemed  to  ac- 
quiesce. 

In  the  final  dissolution  of  the  Carolingian  power  which 
followed  the  deposition  of  Charles  the  Fat,  in  887,  the 
papacy  shared  to  the  full  the  decline  of  the  temporal 


THE    EMPIRE   AND    THE    PAPACY  233 

power.  The  tenth  century,  which  saw  general  govern- 
ment throughout  nearly  the  whole  of  Europe  almost  at 
the  point  of  dissolution,  saw  also  the  papacy  reach  its 
lowest  point  of  degradation  and  corruption.  It  came  to 
be  the  prize  for  which  the  factions  of  the  city  or  the 
nobles  of  the  vicinity  fought  with  one  another,  or  the 
gift  of  corrupt  women  to  their  paramours  or  sons.  Its 
general  European  influence  did  not  entirely  disappear, 
but  it  was  hardly  more  than  that  of  the  Italian  nobles, 
who  through  the  same  period  called  themselves  emperors. 

This  was  the  condition  of  things  at  the  time  of  the 
descent  of  Otto  I  from  Germany  into  Italy,  in  961.  His 
plans,  and  still  more  clearly  those  of  his  immediate  suc- 
cessors, looked  to  the  establishment  of  a  real  world  em- 
pire, in  the  government  of  which  the  papacy  should  act 
as  a  strong  and  efficient  ally  of  the  emperors.  The  popes 
of  their  appointment  accomplished  at  least  a  partial  and 
temporary  reformation,  though  without  the  support  of 
the  Roman  people,  and  though  the  realization  of  the 
ideas  which  the  Ottos  appear  to  have  cherished  would 
have  meant  the  practical  absorption  of  the  papacy  in 
the  empire.  But  the  destinies  were  against  the  Saxon 
family.  Otto  II  hardly  more  than  began  his  reign,  which 
promised  even  greater  results  than  his  father  had  accom- 
pliahed  in  the  centralization  of  Germany  and  the  restora- 
tion of  the  empire,  and  his  death,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
eight,  was  a  great  misfortune  both  for  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire  and  for  Germany. 

The  minority  of  his  son.  Otto  III,  was  a  time  of  loss 
in  all  directions.  The  dukes  recovered  something  of 
their  former  position  in  Germany,  and  the  hold  of  the 
empire  on  Italy  was  loosened.  When  Otto  reached  an 
age  to  rule,  he  revealed  a  most  interesting  personality. 
His  mind  seems  to  have  been  entirely  wrapped  in  dreams 
of  the  widest  imperial  power,  encouraged  apparently 
by  his  favorite,   Gerbert,  whom  he  made  pope  as  Syl- 


234  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

vester  II.  But  he  was  very  little  concerned  with  the 
position  which  he  should  occupy  as  German  king.  He 
gained,  very  likely  as  a  consequence  of  his  lack  of  na- 
tional feeling,  no  strong  support  in  any  direction,  and 
died  at  the  age  of  twenty-two,  apparently  on  the  eve  of 
failure. 

With  his  death  the  wide  imperial  ideas  of  the  Ottos 
were  dropped.  In  Italy  there  was  a  relapse  into  earlier 
conditions.  In  Germany  the  work  of  restoring  the  royal 
power  was  seriously  taken  up,  and  the  most  permanent 
result  of  the  Saxon  empire  seems  to  have  been  a  terrible 
temptation,  constantly  before  the  king  in  Germany,  to 
neglect  his  proper  business  in  his  own  dominions,  when 
his  task  was  half  done,  for  the  sake  of  a  visionary  head- 
ship of  the  world. 

The  devotion  of  the  Ottos  to  imperial  interests  had  al- 
lowed the  little  feudal  dominions  in  Germany,  reinforced 
in  some  cases  by  a  survival  of  tribal  loyalty,  to  strengthen 
themselves  very  greatly,  and  to  take  a  much  more  inde- 
pendent position  towards  the  crown.  The  process  of  de- 
stroying the  central  government,  by  splitting  the  country 
into  minute  fragments  that  could  not  be  controlled,  which 
entailed  so  much  suffering  in  future  ages  upon  the  Ger- 
mans, and  kept  them  back  so  long  from  any  real  national 
life,  got  so  strongly  under  way,  because  of  the  imperial 
policy  of  the  Saxon  family  in  Italy,  that  it  was  no  longer 
possible  to  stop  it — certainly  not  when  that  policy  was 
inherited  as  well  by  the  succeeding  kings. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  bear  this  fact  in 
mind,  because  it  not  merely  involved  the  destruction  of 
the  royal  power,  but  it  alone  rendered  possible  the  des- 
perate conflict  with  the  church,  and  finally  the  virtual 
triumph  of  the  pope.  Had  the  emperor  been  supported 
by  a  centralized  Germany,  had  not  his  plans  been  con- 
stantly checked  by  the  selfish  interests  of  the  local  powers, 
papal  resistance  would   have  been  impossible,   and   the 


THE   EMPIRE   AND   THE   PAPACY  235 

growing  might  of  the  ItaHan  cities  would  have  been  over- 
whebned  before  it  could  have  developed  into  a  serious 
obstacle  to  the  imperial  authority. 

The  aspect  of  Germany  at  the  accession  of  Henry  III, 
in  1039,  had  changed  very  much  from  that  of  a  hundred 
years  earlier.  The  older  duchies  still  existed  in  name, 
but  with  a  relative  importance  very  much  reduced  by 
the  rise  of  numerous  smaller  feudal  dominions  beside 
them.  Pfalzgrafen,  markgrafen,  and  even  grafen,  had 
been  founding  Httle  "dynasties,"  and  gradually  throwing 
off  any  dependence  upon  the  dukes,  whose  territories 
were  being  diminished  in  this  way  and  their  power  weak- 
ened. Konrad  II,  the  first  Franconian  emperor,  seems 
to  have  deliberately  encouraged  the  rise  into  indepen- 
dence of  these  smaller  principaHties,  as  a  means  of  under- 
mining the  great  ones,  and  the  policy  of  the  Saxon  em- 
perors, of  conferring  independent  rights  of  jurisdiction 
on  ecclesiastical  princes,  tended  to  the  same  result.^ 

The  policy  was,  in  the  main,  a  successful  one,  or  we 
may  say  that  the  process  of  separation  and  local  inde- 
pendence had  not  yet  gone  so  far  but  that  a  generation 
of  vigorous  government,  when  the  king  interested  himself 
chiefly  in  German  affairs,  was  able  to  restore  the  royal 
power.  Henry  III  was  speedily  able  to  acquire  the 
strongest  real  control  of  Germany  that  any  sovereign 
had  had,  or  that  any  was  to  have  in  the  future  for  that 
matter. 

But  he  was  soon  called  into  Italy.  There  the  condi- 
tion of  things  for  a  few  years  past  had  been  nearly  as 
bad  as  at  any  time  in  the  tenth  century.  The  counts  of 
Tusculum  had   almost  made   the  papacy  hereditary  in 

'  The  final  steps  in  this  process,  when  the  duchies,  in  the  old  sense,  dis- 
appeared, and  numerous  smaller  principalities  rose  to  full  equaUty  with 
the  power  v/hich  the  duchies  had  once  held,  were  taken  in  the  Hohenstaufen 
period.  The  geography  of  Germany  in  that  period,  as  compared  with  that 
under  the  Saxon  emperors,  shows  how  far  this  process  had  gone.  Compaxe 
Maps  22  and  26  in  Droysen's  Historischcr  Handatlas. 


236  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

their  family,  and  by  the  most  corrupt  means.  At  this 
time  there  were  three  rival  popes,  each  maintaining  his 
exclusive  right  to  rule.  All  of  them  Henry  deposed,  and 
appointed,  one  after  another,  a  succession  of  popes  almost 
as  solely  by  virtue  of  his  imperial  power  as  if  the  Roman 
bishopric  were  any  minor  bishopric  of  Germany.  The 
series  of  precedents  in  favor  of  the  right  of  the  emperor 
over  the  pope  which  had  been  established  by  the  Ottos 
and  Henry  was  as  clear  and  indisputable  as  any  prece- 
dents on  the  other  side  to  which  the  popes  could  appeal. 

But  with  the  popes  of  Henry's  appointment  a  new  and 
most  powerful  force  rose  to  the  control  of  the  papacy— 
a  strong  and  earnest  movement  for  reformation  which 
had  arisen  outside  the  circle  of  papal  influence  during 
the  darkest  days  of  its  degradation,  indeed,  and  entirely 
independent  of  the  empire.  This  had  started  from  the 
monastery  of  Cluny,  founded  in  910,  in  eastern  France, 
as  a  reformation  of  the  monastic  Ufe,  but  it  involved 
gradually  ideas  of  a  wider  reformation  throughout  the 
whole  church.  Two  great  sins  of  the  time,  as  it  regarded 
them,  were  especially  attacked,  the  marriage  of  priests 
and  simony,  or  the  purchase  of  ecclesiastical  preferment 
for  money,  including  also  appointments  to  church  offices 
by  temporal  rulers. 

Neither  of  these  principles  was  new  in  the  requirement 
of  the  church,  but  the  vigor  and  thoroughness  of  the  de- 
mand were  new,  and  both  principles  were  carried  to  fur- 
ther consequences  than  ever  before.  It  is  easy  to  see, 
also,  that,  if  they  were  carried  out  in  any  thorough- 
going and  complete  way,  they  would  necessarily  involve 
a  most  perfect  centralization  of  the  church,  and  this  was 
a  part  of  the  Cluny  programme.  The  absolute  subor- 
dination of  all  local  churches  to  the  central  head,  the 
pope,  and  the  entire  independence  of  the  church,  both  in 
head  and  members,  of  all  control  by  the  state,  were  in- 
evitable corollaries  of  its  position. 


THE   EMPIRE   AND   THE   PAPACY  237 

The  earnest  spirit  of  Henry  III  was  not  out  of  sym- 
pathy with  the  demand  for  a  real  reformation,  and  with 
the  third  pope  of  his  appointment,  Leo  IX,  in  1048,  the 
ideas  of  Cluny  obtained  the  direction  of  affairs.  Leo 
was  an  able  man,  and  undertook  a  restoration  of  the 
papal  power  throughout  Europe  with  vigor  and  deter- 
mination, though  not  with  uniform  success.  He  did  not 
recognize  the  right  of  the  emperor  to  appoint  the  pope, 
and  refused  to  assume  the  place  until  he  had  been  ca- 
nonically  chosen  in  Rome,  but  on  his  death  his  successor 
was  again  appointed  b}-  Henry. 

One  apparently  insignificant  act  of  Leo's  had  impor- 
tant consequences.  He  brought  back  with  him  to  Rome 
the  monk  Hildebrand.  He  had  been  brought  up  in  a 
monastery  in  Rome  in  the  strictest  ideas  of  Cluny,  had 
been  a  supporter  of  Gregory  VI,  one  of  the  three  rival 
popes  deposed  by  Henry,  who,  notwithstanding  his  out- 
right purchase  of  the  papacy,  represented  the  new  reform 
demand,  and  had  gone  with  him  into  exile  on  his  deposi- 
tion. It  does  not  appear  that  he  exercised  any  decisive 
influence  during  the  reign  of  Leo  IX,  but  so  great  was 
his  ability  and  such  the  power  of  his  personality  that  by 
gradual  steps  he  became  the  directing  spirit  in  the  papal 
pohcy,  though  his  influence  over  the  papacy  before  his 
own  pontificate  was  not  so  great  nor  so  constant  as  it 
is  sometimes  said  to  have  been. 

So  long  as  Henry  lived  the  balance  of  power  was  de- 
cidedly in  favor  of  the  emperor,  but  in  1056  happened 
that  disastrous  event,  which  occurred  so  many  times  at 
critical  points  of  imperial  history,  from  Arnulf  to  Henry 
VI,  the  premature  death  of  the  emperor.  His  son,  Henry 
IV,  was  only  six  years  old  at  his  father's  death,  and  a 
minority  followed  just  in  the  crisis  of  time  needed  to 
enable  the  feudal  princes  of  Germany  to  recover  and 
strengthen  their  independence  against  the  central  gov- 
ernment, and  to  give  free  hands  to  the  papacy  to  carry 


238  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

out  its  plans  for  throwing  off  the  imperial  control.  Never 
again  did  an  emperor  occupy,  in  respect  either  to  Ger- 
many or  the  papacy,  the  vantage-ground  on  which  Henry 
III  had  stood. 

The  minority  was  thus  a  turning-point  in  the  history 
of  Germany  and  of  the  church.  It  was  also,  in  one  sense, 
a  turning-point  in  the  history  of  the  world,  for  the  real 
religious  reformation,  which  was  demanded  and  which 
had  been  begun  by  Cluny,  need  not,  of  necessity,  have 
involved  the  extreme  centralization  in  'the  government  of 
the  church  which  had  been  connected  with  it  and  which 
raised  the  papacy  to  its  position  of  European  supremacy 
in  another  century.  There  was  needed  a  strong  and  able 
emperor  of  a  thoroughly  reforming  spirit  to  separate  the 
reform  which  was  necessary  from  the  absolutist  tendency 
which  accompanied  it.  Whether  Henry  III  could  have 
done  this  we  cannot  be  sure.  His  death  certainly  made 
it  impossible. 

The  triumph  of  the  reform  movement  and  of  its  eccle- 
siastical theory  is  especially  associated  with  the  name  of 
Hildebrand,  or  Gregory  VII,  as  he  called  himself  when 
pope,  and  was  very  largely,  if  not  entirely,  due  to  his 
indomitable  spirit  and  iron  will,  which  would  yield  to  no 
persuasion  or  threats  or  actual  force.  He  is  one  of  the 
most  interesting  personalities  of  history.  The  sentence 
of  his  supporter,  Peter  Damiani,  "He  ruled  me  like  a 
holy  Satan,"  has  been  so  often  quoted  because  it  de- 
scribes him  in  a  word.  His  acts  were  often  those  which 
properly  belong  in  the  kingdom  of  darkness,  but  his  pur- 
poses were  righteous,  as  he  understood  the  right — a.  most 
interesting  example  of  the  men  so  numerous  in  every 
age  and  in  every  walk  of  life  who  are  so  thoroughly  con- 
vinced of  the  holiness  of  their  cause  that  all  the  means 
which  they  can  use  to  secure  its  triumph  seem  to  them 
equally  holy. 

The   three   chief  points  which   the   reform  party   at- 


THE   EMPIRE   AND   THE   PAPACY  239 

tempted  to  gain  were  the  independence  of  the  church 
from  all  outside  control  in  the  election  of  the  pope,  the 
celibacy  of  the  clergy,  and  the  abolition  of  simony,  or  the 
purchase  of  ecclesiastical  preferment.  The  foundation 
for  the  first  of  these  was  laid  under  Nicholas  II  by  as- 
signing the  selection  of  the  pope  to  the  college  of  car- 
dinals in  Rome,  though  it  was  only  after  some  consider- 
able time  that  this  reform  was  fully  secured. 

The  second  point,  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy,  had  long 
been  demanded  by  the  church,  but  the  requirement  had 
not  been  strictly  enforced,  and  in  many  parts  of  Europe 
married  clergy  were  the  rule.  The  attempt  which  was 
made  to  compel  obedience  on  this  point  met  with  the 
most  violent  opposition  within  the  church  itself,  but  the 
sympathy  of  the  people  was  in  the  main  with  the  re- 
formers and  their  cause  was  finally  gained.  The  impor- 
tance of  this  step  and  its  value  in  the  centralization  of 
the  church  hardly  needs  to  be  stated.  Not  merely  was 
the  temptation  to  alienate  the  endowments  of  the  church 
for  the  benefit  of  children  removed  from  the  clergy,  but 
all  their  lives  were  made  to  centre  in  the  church.  They 
were  to  have  nothing  else  to  live  for,  nothing  else  to  plan 
for.  The  church  secured  an  army  of  occupation,  thor- 
oughly devoted  to  itself,  in  every  country  of  Europe. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  the  Cluny  party  believed 
that  they  were  accomplishing  a  needed  moral  reform  in 
this  matter,  but  there  is  also  no  doubt  but  that  they 
realized  and  hoped  to  secure  the  gain  which  would  result 
from  it  to  the  ecclesiastical  world  monarchy. 

As  interpreted  by  the  reformers,  the  third  of  their 
demands,  the  suppression  of  simony,  was  as  great  a  step 
in  advance  and  as  revolutionary  as  the  first.  Techni- 
cally, simony  was  the  sin  of  securing  an  ecclesiastical  of- 
fice by  bribery,  named  from  the  incident  concerning  Simon 
Magus,  recorded  in  the  eighth  chapter  of  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles.     But  at  this  time  the  desire  for  the  complete 


240  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

independence  of  the  church  had  given  to  it  a  new  and 
wider  meaning  which  made  it  include  all  appointment  to 
important  offices  in  the  church  by  laymen,  including  kings 
and  the  emperor. 

It  is  the  plainest  of  historical  facts  that  such  appoint- 
ment had  gone  on,  practically  undisputed,  from  the 
earliest  times.  Under  both  the  public  and  the  private 
law  of  all  the  German  states  the  king  had  such  a  right. 
According  to  the  private  law  the  founder  was  the  pa- 
tron, and  as  such  enjoyed  the  right  of  appointment. 
According  to  the  conception  of  the  public  law  the  bishop 
was  an  officer  of  the  state.  He  had,  in  the  great  major- 
ity of  cases,  political  duties  to  perform  as  important  as 
his  ecclesiastical  duties.  The  lands  which  formed  the  en- 
dowment of  his  office  had  always  been  considered  as  being, 
more  immediately  even  than  the  land  of  lay  vassals,  the 
property  of  the  state,  and  were  treated  as  such  when  the 
occasion  demanded,  from  times  before  Charles  Martel  to 
times  after  Gregory  VII.  At  this  period  these  lands  had 
clearly  defined  feudal  obligations  to  perform,  which  con- 
stituted a  very  considerable  proportion  of  the  resources 
of  the  state.  It  was  a  matter  of  vital  importance  whether 
officers  exercising  such  important  functions  and  control- 
ling so  large  a  part  of  its  area — probably  everywhere  as 
much  as  one-third  of  the  territory — should  be  selected 
by  the  state  or  by  some  foreign  power  beyond  its  reach 
and  having  its  own  peculiar  interests  to  seek. 

But  this  question  of  lay  investiture  was  as  vitally  im- 
portant for  the  church  as  for  the  state.  Not  merely  was 
the  bishop  a  great  ecclesiastical  as  well  as  political  of- 
ficer, but  manifestly  also  that  close  centralization  of  the 
church,  which  was  to  be  the  result  of  this  movement, 
could  not  be  secured  if  temporal  princes  should  have  the 
right  of  determining  what  sort  of  men  should  occupy 
places  of  such  influence  in  the  government  of  the  church. 
It  was  as  necessary  to  the  centralization  and  indepen- 


THE   EMPIRE   AND   THE   PAPACY  241 

dence  of  the  church  that  it  should  choose  these  officers  as 
that  it  should  elect  the  head  of  all — the  pope. 

This  was  not  a  question  for  Germany  alone.  Every 
northern  state  had  to  face  the  same  difficulty.  In  En- 
gland during  this  period  the  same  contest  was  carried 
through  to  the  same  compromise  at  the  end.  In  France 
the  contest  did  not  rise  to  the  same  importance  from 
accidental  reasons,  but  the  result  was  essentially  the 
same.  The  struggle  was  so  much  more  bitter  and  ob- 
stinate with  the  emperor  than  with  any  other  sovereign 
because  of  the  close  relation  of  the  two  powers  one  to 
another,  and  because  the  whole  question  of  their  rela- 
tive rights  was  bound  up  with  it.  It  was  an  act  of  re- 
bellion on  the  part  of  the  papacy  against  the  sovereign 
who  had  controlled  it  with  almost  absolute  power  for  a 
century,  and  it  was  the  rising  into  an  equal,  or  even 
superior,  place  beside  the  emperor  of  what  was  practically 
a  new  power,  a  rival  for  his  imperial  position. 

For  this  was  what  the  movement  taken  as  a  whole 
really  meant.  It  is  not  possible  to  overstate  the  signif- 
icance of  this  age  as  the  time  when  the  possibility  which 
lay  before  it  of  assuming  the  control  of  the  whole  Chris- 
tian world,  political  as  well  as  ecclesiastical,  dawned  upon 
the  consciousness  of  the  Roman  church.  The  full  power 
which  so  many  men  in  the  past  had  been  laboring  to  se- 
cure, though  only  imperfectly  understanding  it,  the  posi- 
tion towards  which  through  so  many  centuries  she  had 
been  steadily  though  unconsciously  tending,  the  church 
now  began  clearly  to  see  and  to  realize  that  it  was  almost 
attained  and,  seeing  this,  to  set  about  the  last  steps  neces- 
sary to  reach  the  goal  with  definite  and  vigorous  purpose. 

This  cannot  be  doubted  by  any  one  who  looks  over  the 
acts  and  the  claims  of  the  papacy  during  the  time  of 
Hildebrand.  The  feudal  suzerainty  which  is  established 
under  Nicholas  II  over  the  Norman  states  of  southern 
Italy  is  based  distinctly  on  the  rights  conveyed  by  the 


242  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Donation  of  Constantine,  which,  if  carried  further,  might 
be  made  to  cover  the  whole  West.  The  kings  of  the  grow- 
ing Spanish  states  are  reminded  that  territory  conquered 
from  the  infidel  belongs  of  right  to  the  pope  as  vassal 
territory.  The  same  claim  is  advanced  for  Hungary. 
The  fealty  of  England  is  demanded.  Most  imperious 
letters  are  written  to  the  king  of  France.  Political  af- 
fairs are  taken  notice  of  in  Scandinavia  and  in  Russia. 
The  king  of  Munster,  in  Ireland,  is  informed  that  all 
sovereigns  are  subjects  of  St.  Peter,  and  that  all  the 
world  owes  obedience  to  him  and  to  his  vicar.  The  dif- 
ference between  the  actual  power  of  the  papacy  under 
Gregory  VII,  and  again  under  Innocent  III,  when  it 
reaches  its  highest  point,  is  due  to  the  circumstances  of 
the  time  which  enable  the  later  pope  to  carry  through 
his  pretensions  to  a  more  successful  issue,  and  not  at 
all  to  any  clearer  conception  of  his  rights  by  Innocent. 

It  was  absolutely  impossible  that  a  conflict  with  these 
new  claims  should  be  avoided  as  soon  as  Henry  IV  ar- 
rived at  an  age  to  take  the  government  into  his  own 
hands  and  attempted  to  exercise  his  imperial  rights  as 
he  understood  them. 

The  details  of  that  conflict  it  is  not  possible  to  follow: 
the  divided  condition  of  Germany,  which  fatally  weak- 
ened the  emperor's  power;  the  dramatic  incident  of  Ca- 
nossa;  the  faithful  support  of  the  imperial  cause  by  the 
Rhine  cities;  the  rebellion  of  Henry's  son,  who,  when  he 
became  emperor,  followed  his  father's  policy;  the  death 
of  Henry  IV,  powerless  and  under  the  ban  of  the  church; 
the  fluctuations  of  success,  now  on  one  side  and  now 
on  the  other. 

The  settlement  which  was  finally  reached  in  the  Con- 
cordat  of   Worms,    in    1122,    was    a   compromise.^     The 

'This  concordat  may  be  found,  in  translation,  in  Henderson,  p.  408;  in 
the  original,  in  Matthews,  Select  Mediceval  Documents  (Boston,  1892),  p.  66 
— a  little  book  which  makes  easily  accessible  the  text  of  a  considerable 
number  of  the  important  documents  illustrating  the  conflict  between  church 
and  empire. 


THE   EMPIRE   AND   THE   PAPACY  243 

church  was  to  choose  the  man  for  the  office.  He  was 
then  to  receive  the  lay  investiture,  as  a  political  and 
feudal  officer,  from  the  king,  and  finally  the  spiritual 
investiture,  with  the  ring  and  staff,  from  the  church  as 
an  ecclesiastical  officer  and  a  pastor.  The  state  secured 
in  this  way  something  of  a  control,  though  not  so  com- 
plete as  it  had  desired,  over  the  interests  in  which  it  was 
most  concerned.  And  the  church,  yielding  also  some 
of  its  demands,  secured  the  point  most  important  for 
its  protection.  It  was,  in  all  probability,  as  fair  a  settle- 
ment of  the  dispute  as  could  be  reached,  and  the  ques- 
tion practically  disappeared — not  absolutely,  because,  as 
opportunity  offered  in  the  following  times,  each  of  the 
parties  tried  to  usurp  the  rights  which  had  not  been 
granted  to  it;  but  the  question  never  again  became  of 
such  universal  importance  as  when  it  was  the  central  is- 
sue in  the  conffict  between  the  empire  and  the  papacy. 
When  that  great  strife  opened  again,  nearly  half  a  century 
later,  it  had  shifted  to  other  grounds  and  presents  a 
wholly  changed  aspect. 

While,  however,  on  the  special  question  the  church 
did  not  secure  all  that  it  had  claimed  or  hoped  for — 
though  all,  perhaps,  to  which  it  had  a  just  claim — there 
was  far  more  at  stake  in  the  contest,  as  we  have  seen, 
than  the  particular  point  of  lay  investiture,  and  in  regard 
to  these  wider  interests  the  victory  of  the  church  was 
complete.  The  change  which  had  taken  place  in  the 
century  from  the  papacy  as  it  existed  under  Henry  III 
was  enormous.  The  popes  had  emancipated  themselves 
from  all  imperial  control,  never  again  to  pass  under  it. 
But  they  had  gained  much  more  than  this.  Not  merely 
was  the  papacy  independent,  but  it  had  come  up  beside 
the  empire  as  a  fully  co-ordinate  and  equal  sovereignty, 
not  merely  in  theory  but  in  the  power  actually  exercised. 
It  was  also  no  longer  satisfied  with  ecclesiastical  rule.  It 
had  greatly  enlarged  its  sphere,  and  was  claiming  rights 
throughout  Europe  which  were  manifestly  political  and 


244  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

therefore  belonging  to  the  emperor's  domain.  But  the 
emperor  was  powerless  to  prevent  this  extension  of  papal 
prerogative,  and  could  not  possibly  interfere  with  suc- 
cess in  cases  where  the  pope  made  himself  obeyed.  This 
papal  power  continued  to  grow  through  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, greatly  aided  by  the  general  spirit  of  the  age  and 
by  the  contemporary  crusades,  and  at  its  close  Innocent 
III  exercised  a  more  truly  international  sway  than  any 
emperor  had  ever  done. 

After  the  interval  of  a  single  reign  a  new  dynasty  suc- 
ceeded the  Franconian  upon  the  imperial  throne — the 
Hohenstaufen — one  of  the  most  brilliant  families  of  his- 
tory, producing  a  most  remarkable  succession  of  princes. 
The  first  of  this  family  to  take  up  in  any  wide  sense  the 
old  imperial  plan,  and  consequently  to  come  into  collision 
with  the  papacy,  was  Frederick  Barbarossa,  whose  reign 
begins  in  1152. 

This  seems  to  be  a  new  age  of  conflict  between  em- 
pire and  papacy.  This  is  its  surface  appearance,  and 
this  determined  largely  its  external  character.  But  it 
needs  only  to  look  below  the  surface,  and  not  very  far 
below,  to  see  that  this  is  not  a  contest  between  empire 
and  papacy  in  the  old  sense.  That  rivalry  is  no  longer 
as  it  was  before  the  one  leading  and  central  issue  be- 
tween the  parties.  It  has  rather  fallen  to  the  position 
of  an  incident  of  the  main  battle.  The  great  struggle  of 
Frederick's  life  is  with  powers  and  principalities  which 
did  not  exist  a  hundred  years  earlier.  The  conflict  is 
manifestly  of  the  old  empire,  a  creation  of  earlier  medi- 
eval times  and  fitted  to  their  conditions,  with  the  spirit 
and  conditions  of  a  new  age  to  which  it  is  unfitted,  with 
strong  forces  which  are  everywhere  transforming  Europe 
and  which  cannot  be  held  back.  The  struggle  is  rather 
on  the  part  of  the  emperor  to  recover  and  to  retain  an 
imperial  position  from  which  he  is  being  slowly  but  irre- 


THE   EMPIRE   AND   THE   PAPACY  245 

sistibly  pushed,  than  to  prevent  any  rival  power  from 
establishing  a  similar  imperial  position  beside  him.  That 
had  now  been  done  beyond  any  possibility  of  further  dis- 
pute. 

The  papacy,  which  was  itself  in  the  end  also  to  fall  a 
victim,  so  far  as  its  imperial  power  is  concerned,  to  the 
forces  of  the  new  age,  was  for  the  moment  their  ally. 
And  this  was  in  truth  the  necessary  and  proper  alliance 
for  the  papacy  to  make.  For,  though  the  new  age  was  to 
prove  itself  bitterly  hostile  to  certain  of  the  papal  pre- 
tensions, its  immediate  triumph  was  not  so  full  of  danger, 
even  to  these  pretensions,  as  the  triumph  of  the  emperor 
would  have  been,  and,  in  the  end,  could  not  be  so  destruc- 
tive to  the  other  side  of  the  papal  power,  its  ecclesiastical 
supremacy. 

If  we  look  first  at  the  Germany  of  that  day,  which 
would  seem  to  be  necessarily  the  foundation  of  any  strong 
imperial  power,  we  see  at  once  the  magnitude  of  the 
change  which  had  taken  place  there,  and  the  entire  rev- 
olution in  the  imperial  policy  since  the  days  of  Henry  III, 

The  subdivision  of  Germany  had  now  been  carried 
much  further  than  at  that  time.  A  host  of  small  prin- 
cipalities had  escaped  from  the  authority  of  any  inter- 
mediate lord,  and  now  depended  immediately  upon  the 
emperor.  Their  rights  of  independence  and  local  gov- 
ernment were  much  more  clearly  defined  and  fully  recog- 
nized than  then.  They  were  no  longer — though  they  may 
have  retained  the  titles— dukes  and  counts,  that  is,  officers 
of  the  empire,  but  they  were  "princes,"  or,  in  other  words, 
sovereigns.  Some  of  them  had  already  begun,  with  great 
vigor  and  earnestness,  the  work  of  centrahzing  and  con- 
solidating their  own  territories,  and  of  breaking  the 
power  of  their  own  vassals,  and  of  the  small  nobles  within 
their  reach,  in  order  to  prevent  that  process  of  disinte- 
gration in  their  own  land  which  they  had  themselves  ac- 
complished in  the  kingdom  at  large. 


246  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

This  change  in  Germany,  Frederick  I  could  not  reverse. 
It  is  indeed  the  trait  which  is  characteristic  of  his  pol- 
icy that  he  no  longer  tried  to  do  so.  He  deliberate!}'  in- 
creased the  number  of  the  smaller  principalities,  or  raised 
them  in  titular  rank,  and  sometimes  with  extraordinary 
concessions  of  local  independence.  He  did  certainly  pun- 
ish with  severity  the  refusal  of  Henry  the  Lion,  the  head 
of  the  great  rival  power  in  Germany,  that  of  the  Guelfs, 
to  aid  him  in  Italy,  and  broke  to  pieces  the  wide  dominion 
which  he  had  brought  together.  But  while  this  was  a 
personal  triumph  for  Frederick,  the  power  of  the  king  in 
Germany  gained  nothing  permanent  from  it. 

The  real  basis  of  Frederick's  power,  and  the  main 
source  of  the  strength  which  he  could  derive  from  Ger- 
many, for  his  Italian  campaigns,  were  the  extensive 
family  possessions  of  the  Hohenstaufen,  increased  by  the 
inheritance  of  the  Franconian  family  lands,  possessions 
which,  when  brought  together  were  greater  than  those 
of  any  other  German  family  with  the  possible  exception 
of  the  Guelfs.  To  these  resources  Frederick  added  what- 
ever he  could  at  any  moment  gain  from  the  German 
princes,  won  often  by  further  concessions  from  the  relics 
of  the  royal  power. 

Frederick  I  may  be  said,  then,  to  have  begun  that 
policy  which,  though  it  was  a  complete  abandonment  of 
the  old  imperial  policy,  is  the  sole  method  of  the  em- 
perors of  all  later  times,  the  policy  of  depending  chiefly 
upon  the  strength  derived  from  the  personal  possessions 
of  the  emperor,  and  of  using  the  royal  rights  as  ready 
money  with  which  to  purchase,  whatever  could  be  pur- 
chased, to  add  to  this  private  strength.  As  Frederick's 
reign  was  the  apparent  turning-point  from  the  old  policy 
to  the  new  one,  it  was  naturally  not  followed  with  such 
complete  disregard  of  consequences  as  it  was  to  be  very 
soon  after,  but  it  was  clearly  enough  his  policy,  and  we 
may  date  from  his  time  the  surrender  of  the  central  gov- 


THE   EMPIRE   AND   THE   PAPACY  247 

eminent  in  Germany  to  the  sovereignty  and  independence 
of  the  princes. 

It  is  in  Italy,  however,  that  the  most  decisive  and 
revolutionary  changes,  which  mark  the  new  age,  are  to 
be  seen.  There  Frederick  found  opposed  to  him  an  en- 
tirely new  and  most  determined  enemy — the  cities. 

Favoring  causes  which  were  begun  or  strengthened  by 
the  crusades,  then  well  under  way,  and  which  we  shall 
hereafter  examine  more  closely,  had  led  to  a  rapid  devel- 
opment of  the  cities  in  power  and  in  the  spirit  of  inde- 
pendence. They  had  arisen  in  northern  Italy  to  occupy 
the  place  which  the  princes  occupied  in  Germany,  that 
is,  they  were  the  fragments  into  which  the  country  had 
divided  in  the  absence  of  a  strong  central  government. 
Like  the  princes,  also,  they  had  secured  rights  of  local 
self-government,  but  their  governments  were  of  course 
republican  in  form  and  not  monarchical,  and  their  actual 
independence  was  probably  greater  than  the  German 
princes  enjoyed  at  this  time.  They  had  adopted  also  that 
policy  of  absorption  in  respect  to  the  feudal  nobles  in  their 
neighborhood,  which  the  princes  were  beginning  to  follow 
in  Germany,  though  in  the  case  of  the  cities  with  more 
speedy  and  complete  success.  Feudalism,  as  a  political 
institution,  had  practically  disappeared  from  Italy  by 
the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century.  Only  two  or  three  of 
the  great  fiefs  still  existed.  The  cities  had  almost  wholly 
absorbed  the  smaller  nobility,  and  had  created  larger  or 
smaller  city  principalities  by  extending  their  sway  over 
as  much  of  the  surrounding  territory  as  possible.  It  was 
manifestly  certain  that  the  cities  would  offer  a  most  ob- 
stinate resistance  to  any  attempt  to  restore  a  direct  im- 
perial control. 

But  in  one  way  the  development  of  commerce  and  of 
the  cities  had  placed  a  new  weapon  in  the  emperor's 
hands.  It  had  led  to  a  more  general  and  thorough  study 
of  the  ancient  Roman  law,  and  this  law  represented  the 


24^^  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

emperor  as  absolute  in  all  departments  of  government. 
Frederick's  lawyers  said  to  him:  "Your  will  is  the  source 
of  law  according  to  the  recognized  legal  maxim  of  the 
Institutes:  whatever  the  prince  has  approved  has  the 
force  of  law." 

It  was  with  the  sanction  which  he  derived  from  the 
authority  of  the  Justinian  code  that  Frederick  attempted 
to  establish  a  royal  supervision  of  the  local  governments 
of  the  cities,  and  to  revive  a  number  of  practically  obso- 
lete rights  which  could  be  made  to  yield  a  considerable 
revenue.  What  he  did  has  very  much  the  appearance  oi 
an  attempt  to  re-establish  in  Italy  that  centralized  and 
immediate  royal  government  which  had  been  practically 
given  up  in  Germany. 

For  the  cities  it  was  a  matter  of  vital  concern.  Not 
merely  was  the  local  independence  which  they  had  se- 
cured in  danger  but  also  their  continued  commercial  pros- 
perity, which  would  depend  very  largely  upon  freedom 
from  restraint  and  the  power  of  self-direction.  Therefore 
they  made  common  cause  with  one  another,  the  most  of 
them  at  least,  and  drew  together  closely  in  the  Lombard 
League — an  organization  which  they  formed  for  mutual 
defence  against  the  emperor. 

The  details  of  the  struggle  we  cannot  follow.  The 
battle  of  Legnano,  in  1176,  is  worthy  of  note,  in  which 
the  cities  gained  a  complete  victory  over  the  emperor 
and  broke  his  power  for  the  moment.  But  it  was  a  vic- 
tory from  which  they  did  not  gain  so  much  as  might  have 
been  expected.  With  great  skill  Frederick  set  about  the 
recovery  of  his  position,  and  he  succeeded  in  separating 
the  papacy  from  the  cities,  and  making  a  separate  peace 
with  Alexander  III  on  the  basis  of  mutual  concessions. 
Then  followed  in  Germany  the  overthrow  of  Henry  the 
Lion  and  the  destruction  of  the  power  of  the  Guelfs,  and 
after  this  Frederick  found  the  cities  as  ready  as  himself 
to  make  peace. 


THE    EMPIRE    AND    THE    PAPACY  249 

By  the  treaty  of  Constance,  which  was  concluded  be- 
tween them  in  1183,  the  general  sovereignty  of  the  em- 
peror was  recognized,  the  officers  elected  by  the  cities 
were  to  be  confirmed  by  him,  certain  cases  might  be  ap- 
pealed from  the  city  courts  to  his  representatives,  and 
the  special  rights  which  he  had  claimed  were  commuted 
for  an  annual  payment  from  each  city  large  enough  to 
afford  him  a  considerable  revenue.  In  reality,  however, 
the  local  sovereignty  and  independence  of  the  cities  were 
recognized  by  the  emperor,  and  the  hope  of  establishing 
a  consolidated  national  government  in  Italy,  if  he  had 
cherished  it,  was  abandoned,  as  it  had  been  in  Germany. 
Certainly  both  these  countries  had  now  fallen  into  frag- 
ments, never  again  to  be  united  into  a  national  whole 
until  after  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  emperor  had  now  made  peace  with  all  his  ene- 
mies, and  the  last  part  of  his  reign  was  only  slightly 
troubled  with  opposition.  He  was  master  of  large  re- 
sources and  possessed  very  great  and  real  power.  It 
might  seem  to  him  almost  possible  to  establish  as  an 
actual  fact  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  of  the  theory,  and 
there  are  indications  that  he  thought  such  a  success  not 
beyond  his  reach.  But  although  his  position  was  a  bril- 
liant one,  a  really  strong  and  imperial  position,  it  rested 
upon  a  very  different  and  far  less  secure  foundation  than 
the  "power  of  the  Ottos  or  of  Henry  III.  The  only  actual 
empire  which  was  now  possible  would  be  a  federal,  or 
feudal  sovereignty — the  overlordship  of  fully  independent 
and  self-governing  states.  It  could  no  longer  rest  upon 
the  solid  support  of  a  great  nation  which  would  look  upon 
it  as  a  glorious  expression  of  its  national  life. 

Shortly  after  the  Peace  of  Constance,  however,  an  ad- 
vantage was  secured  by  Frederick  which  promised  to  re- 
store, in  large  measure  at  least,  all  that  the  emperor  had 
lost  in  this  way,  and  which  determined  the  character  of 
the  final  contest  between  the  empire  and   the  papacy. 


250  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

He  obtained  for  his  son  Henry,  already  acknowledged  as 
his  successor,  the  hand  of  Constance,  heiress  of  the  Nor- 
man kingdom,  which  included  Sicily  and  southern  Italy. 
If  this  could  be  made,  as  a  soHd  and  centralized  state, 
the  basis  of  an  imperial  power,  then  possibly,  having  this 
advantage  to  begin  with,  all  Italy  could  be  consolidated, 
and  the  same  thing  could  afterwards  be  done  in  Germany; 
certainly,  from  its  geographical  position,  the  Norman 
kingdom  would  be  more  suitable  than  the  German  for 
the  centre  of  a  world  empire.  This  was  a  possibility  full 
of  the  greatest  danger  to  the  papacy,  threatening  to  sur- 
round its  little  territory  with  a  strong  imperial  state,  and 
the  popes  did  not  fail  to  see  the  danger. 

Notwithstanding  his  short  reign,  Henry  VI  was  in 
many  respects  the  most  interesting  of  the  Hohenstaufen 
emperors,  and  he  was  probably  the  ablest  of  them  all. 
His  Sicilian  kingdom  he  obtained  only  after  a  long  re- 
sistance, but  he  obtained  it  at  last,  and  in  such  a  way 
that  he  was  really  an  absolute  sovereign  there.  At- 
tempted movements  in  opposition  in  Germany  he  suc- 
ceeded in  overcoming.  The  pope  was  powerless  against 
him,  and  he  disposed  of  a  part  of  the  papal  territory  in 
Italy  as  if  it  were  his  own.  Supported  by  so  much  real 
strength,  his  imperial  ideas  were  of  the  highest  and  wid- 
est, and  the  actual  international  influence  which  he  ex- 
ercised in  the  last  year  or  two  of  his  Hfe  was  greater  than 
that  of  any  other  emperor.  He  had  formed  a  definite 
plan  for  the  consolidation  of  Germany  and  Sicily  into  a 
single  monarchy,  hereditary  instead  of  elective,  and  his 
success  seemed  altogether  likely  when  suddenly  he  died, 
in  1 197,  in  his  thirty-second  year,  leaving  his  son,  Fred- 
erick, three  years  old. 

In  Germany  there  followed  a  double  election,  his 
brother  Philip  representing  the  Hohenstaufen  party,  and 
Otto,  the  son  of  Henry  the  Lion,  the  Guelf  and  papal 
party,  and  in  the  civil  strife  which  resulted  the  princes 


THE    EMPIRE    AND   THE    PAPACY  251 

rapidly  recovered  the  ground  which  they  had  lost  in  the 
last  few  years. 

In  Rome,  a  few  weeks  after  the  death  of  Henry,  In- 
nocent III  was  elected  pope.  Under  him  the  papal 
power,  without  a  real  rival  and  strengthened  by  the  gen- 
eral trend  of  European  affairs  during  the  past  century, 
rose  to  its  highest  point.  He  forced  the  strongest  of  Eu- 
ropean sovereigns  to  obey  him;  he  disposed  of  the  im- 
perial title  almost  as  openly  as  Henry  III  had  of  the 
papal;  he  bestowed  on  several  princes  the  title  of  king, 
and  established  a  circle  of  vassal  kingdoms  almost  com- 
pletely around  the  circumference  of  Europe.  The  im- 
perial position  as  the  head  of  Christendom,  which  Henry 
VI  had  for  a  moment  appeared  to  occupy,  he  held  in 
reality  for  many  years.  He  died  in  1216,  just  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  reign  of  Frederick  II. 

Relieved  thus  at  the  start  of  a  rival  with  whom  he  could 
hardly  expect  to  cope,  and  whose  successor  was  his  in- 
ferior, Frederick  II  took  up  with  earnestness  and  ability 
the  plans  of  his  father.  With  a  more  absolute  control  of 
Sicily  than  any  earlier  king,  with  large  military  strength 
drawn  from  Germany,  with  the  prestige  of  a  successful 
crusade,  he  seemed  about  to  accomplish  what  his  grand- 
father had  failed  to  do,  to  reduce  the  cities  of  north  Italy 
to  the  condition  of  his  Norman  kingdom  under  an  im- 
mediate absolutism.  For  a  few  years  following  his  great 
victory  of  Cortenuova,  in  1237,  his  final  success  seemed 
certain,  and  the  papacy  seemed  utterly  powerless  to 
resist  him  further. 

But  the  strength  of  his  position  was  more  apparent 
than  real.  His  resources  were  mainly  drawn  from  Sicily, 
and  though  rich,  Sicily  showed  signs  of  exhaustion  under 
the  strain.  The  support  of  Germany  had  been  secured 
only  by  concessions  which  sanctioned  in  legal  form  by 
royal  charter  the  practical  independence  which  the  princes, 
both  ecclesiastical  and  lay,  had  secured,  and  made  it  still 


252  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

greater  by  further  sacrifice  of  royal  rights.  But  what  he 
had  gained  by  such  means  was  utterly  insecure  because 
Germany  was  so  divided  by  local  and  personal  interests 
that  civil  strife,  and  almost  anarchy,  was  certain  to  ap- 
pear at  the  first  favorable  moment.  The  Itahan  cities 
were  by  no  means  so  completely  overcome  as  they  seemed, 
nor  was  the  papacy.  France  and  England  had  no  wish 
to  see  the  head  of  the  church  entirely  overthrown  and  the 
papal  seat  left  vacant,  as  it  was  for  two  years  on  the 
death  of  Celestine  IV  in  1241. 

Finally,  the  next  pope,  Innocent  IV,  who  as  bishop 
had  been  the  emperor's  friend,  but  as  pope  must  be  his 
enemy,  succeeded  in  escaping  to  France,  and  at  Lyons 
held  a  council  of  the  church  where  Frederick  was  de- 
posed from  the  empire.  This  acted  as  a  signal  for  all 
his  enemies.  Civil  war  broke  out  in  Germany,  and  an 
opposition  king  was  elected  there.  The  cities  in  north 
Italy  rebelled  and  gathered  new  strength.  Misfortune 
after  misfortune  befell  the  emperor,  and,  though  he  could 
not  be  conquered,  his  power  was  gone. 

After  Frederick's  death,  in  1250,  the  empire  could 
never  be  restored.  The  great  states  which  had  com- 
posed it  fell  apart;  within  themselves  they  v/ere  broken 
to  fragments  and  for  a  few  years  anarchy  reigned  almost 
everywhere.  After  some  time  the  German  kingdom  and 
the  empire  reappeared  in  name.  But  the  old  medieval 
empire  was  no  longer  possible.  It  had  been  completely 
overthrown  and  destroyed,  not  in  truth  by  its  rival,  the 
papacy,  but  by  the  conditions  of  a  new  age,  by  the  forces 
which  were  turning  the  medieval  world  into  the  modern, 
and  they  made  its  reconstruction  beyond  the  power  of 
man. 

But  for  the  moment  the  papacy  was  left  without  a 
rival.  Its  victory  seemed  complete  and  its  pretensions 
rose  accordingly.  It  appeared  about  to  step  into  the 
vacant  place,  and  to  be  on  the  point  of  assuming  the  im- 


THE   EMPIRE   AND   THE   PAPACY  253 

perial  titles  and  prerogatives,  when  it  found  itself  con- 
fronted with  a  new  enemy,  as  determined  as  the  old  one 
and  far  stronger,  an  enemy  whose  success  over  its  polit- 
ical pretensions  was  destined  to  be  complete,  the  new 
spirit  of  national  patriotism  and  independence.  To  this 
new  conflict  we  shall  come  at  a  later  point. 

It  is  as  impossible  here,  as  elsewhere,  to  determine 
what  history  would  have  been  if  the  thing  which  did 
not  happen  had  occurred.  But  if  it  was  an  inherent 
tendency,  as  it  seems  to  have  been,  of  either  of  these 
two  great  powers  to  establish  a  universal  empire  over 
Christendom,  if  this  was  the  object  for  whxich,  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  either  was  striving,  the  one  thing  which 
prevented  such  a  result  was  the  opposition  of  the  other. 
At  the  time  when  the  danger  was  the  greatest  there  was 
no  other  power  in  Europe  which  could  have  offered  suf- 
ficent  resistance  to  either  of  them.  If  there  was  such  a 
danger  it  was  the  greatest  from  the  papacy,  for  the 
strength  which  it  derived  from  the  church  was  far  more 
real  and  effective  for  such  a  purpose  than  any  which  the 
empire  could  have  drawn,  as  things  were,  from  Germany 
and  Italy  or  from  the  theory  of  the  empire.  The  Holy 
Roman  Empire  may  have  entailed  loss  and  suffering, 
which  seemed  without  end,  upon  Germans  and  Itahans, 
but  if  they  succeeded  in  holding  off  the  formation  of  a 
theocratic  absolutism  over  Europe  until  the  modern  na- 
tions were  strong  enough  to  protect  themselves,  their  sac- 
rifices secured  the  future  of  civilization  and  the  possibil- 
ity of  their  own  national  existence  to-day. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   CRUSADES 

In  following  the  history  of  the  empire  and  the  papacy 
in  the  last  chapter  we  have  passed  out  of  the  early  middle 
ages  into  a  new  and  different  time.  Between  the  date 
at  which  that  chapter  opened  and  the  date  at  which  it 
closed  a  great  change  had  taken  place.  New  causes  had 
begun  to  work.  New  forces  had  been  set  in  operation 
or  old  ones  greatly  intensified,  and  the  face  of  history 
had  been  transformed.  In  other  words,  we  have  passed 
in  that  interval  the  turning-point  of  the  middle  ages. 

We  have  seen,  in  the  history  of  the  first  part  of  the 
middle  ages,  the  introduction  of  the  German  element 
which  is  so  important  in  the  modern  races,  and  we  have 
traced  the  rise  and  some  part  of  the  history  of  the  three 
great  medieval  creations — the  Church,  the  Empire,  and 
Feudalism.  We  have  seen  the  German  Empire  of  Charle- 
magne reinforce  the  Roman  idea  of  world  unity,  and  in 
the  breaking  up  of  his  empire  the  modern  nations  of 
Europe  have  taken  shape.  They  have  by  no  means  as 
yet  obtained  their  final  form,  even  in  their  geographical 
outline,  far  less  in  government,  but  they  have  found  the 
places  which  they  are  to  occupy,  they  have  begun  the 
process  of  growth  which  is  to  result  in  their  present 
government,  and  they  are  easily  distinguishable  and  have 
begun  to  a  certain  extent  to  distinguish  themselves  from 
one  another  in  race  and  language.  But  it  is  still  the  first 
half  of  the  middle  ages.  Some  faint  signs  may  show 
themselves  here  and   there  of   the   beginning  of  better 

254 


THE   CRUSADES  255 

things  and  of  a  renewal  of  progress,  somewhat  greater 
activity  in  commerce,  more  frequent  eagerness  to  know, 
and  a  better  understanding  of  the  sources  of  knowledge, 
some  improvements  in  writing  and  in  art.  But  in  all 
the  main  features  of  civilization  the  conditions  which  fol- 
lowed the  German  settlements  remain  with  little  change 
and  only  slight  advance.  But  the  crusades  are  not  over 
when  we  find  ourselves  in  an  age  of  great  changes  and 
relatively  of  rapid  progress. 

We  must  now  return  and  take  up  the  age  of  transi- 
tion which  leads  from  the  earlier  stage  to  the  later,  and 
ascertain,  if  we  can,  the  impulse  which  imparted  fresh 
life  to  the  old  forces  and  awakened  the  new.  This  age 
of  transition  is  the  age  of  the  crusades,  the  pivot  upon 
which  the  middle  ages  turned  from  the  darkness  and 
disorder  of  the  earlier  time  to  the  greater  light  and  order 
of  modern  times.  The  age  of  the  crusades,  then,  is  a 
great  revolutionary  age.  Like  the  age  of  the  fall  of  Rome, 
or  of  the  revival  of  learning  and  the  Reformation,  or  of 
the  French  Revolution,  it  is  an  age  in  which  humanity 
passes,  through  excitement  and  stimulus  and  struggle, 
on  into  a  new  stage  of  its  development,  in  which  it  puts 
off  the  old  and  becomes  new. 

The  occasion  of  the  crusades  was  Mohammedanism. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  century  Arabia  had  been 
revolutionized  by  the  teaching  of  Mohammed.  Put- 
ting into  definite  and  striking  form  the  unconscious 
ideas  and  aspirations  of  his  people,  and  adding  a  central 
and  unifying  teaching,  and  inspiring  and  elevating  no- 
tions from  various  foreign  sources,  he  had  transformed  a 
few  scattered  tribes  into  a  great  nation  and  sent  them 
forth  under  a  blazing  enthusiasm  upon  a  career  of  con- 
quest entirely  unparalleled  in  its  motive  forces,  and  also 
in  its  extent,  unless  by  one  or  two  Mongolian  conquerors. 

This  age  of  conquest  lasted  till  about  750  a,  d.,  and  was 


256  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

then  succeeded  by  an  equally  rapid  and  astonishing  civ- 
ilization, with  which  we  are  all  somewhat  familiar  from 
the  complete  picture  of  it  which  has  been  preserved  in  the 
"Arabian  Nights."  It  was  a  civihzation  not  merely  of 
_elegance  and  luxury  and  certain  forms  of  art,  nor  merely 
of  commercial  enterprise  and  wealth.  In  the  valleys  of 
the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates  the  Mohammedans  became 
acquainted  with  the  work  of  the  Greeks.  Something  in 
their  own  race  nature  seems  to  have  corresponded  to  the 
especially  scientific  tendency  of  the  Greek  mind.  They 
took  up  the  Greek  science  with  very  great  enthusiasm 
and  earnestness,  and  added  to  it  whatever  results  of  a 
similar  sort  they  could  find  among  any  of  the  other  na- 
tions with  whom  they  came  in  contact — mathematical 
suggestions  from  the  Hindoos,  for  example.  They  did 
better  than  this,  for  they  made  additions  of  their  own  to 
the  stock  of  scientific  ideas  which  they  had  inherited. 
Their  great  work,  however,  was  not  in  the  way  of  new 
scientific  discoveries.  They  made  no  great  or  revolu- 
tionary advance  in  any  one  of  the  sciences.  They  made 
new  observations.  They  collected  and  recorded  many 
facts.  They  discovered  new  processes  and  methods. 
Their  own  scientific  work  was  all  of  that  long  and  pa- 
tient sort,  of  preparation  and  collection  and  gradual  im- 
provement of  tools,  which  precedes  every  apparently  sud- 
den achievement  of  genius.  They  handed  over  the  work 
of  the  Greeks  much  better  prepared  to  lead  to  such  an  ad- 
vance than  when  the  Greeks  left  it.  But  their  great  work 
was  to  hand  it  over.  While  the  world  of  western  Chris- 
tendom was  passing  through  its  darkest  ages,  the  for- 
gotten sciences  which  the  Greeks  had  begun  were  cher- 
ished among  the  Mohammedans,  and  enriched  from  other 
sources,  and  finally  given  up  to  Christendom  again  when 
the  nations  of  the  West  had  become  conscious  of  the 
necessity  and  the  possibility  of  scientific  work  and  ambi- 
tious to  begin  it.     This  was  the  most  important  perma- 


THE   CRUSADES  257 

nent  work  for  general  civilization  of  the  first  Moham- 
medan age. 

The  first  flood  of  the  Arabian  conquest  had  swept  over 
the  Holy  Land,  and  the  sepulchre  of  Christ  had  remained 
in  the  hands  of  the  Saracens.  But  for  Mohammedan  as 
for  Christian,  these  were  sacred  places,  and  a  pilgrimage 
was  for  him  a  holy  and  pious  duty  even  more  than  for  his 
Christian  neighbor.  While  the  immediate  successors  of 
the  first  conquerors — ^the  Mohammedans  of  the  southern 
races — retained  control  of  Jerusalem,  the  Christians  were 
allowed  free  access  to  its  shrines,  not  without  intervals 
of  harsh  treatment  under  an  occasional  fanatical  caliph, 
and  not  without  some  uneasiness  on  the  part  of  the  Sara- 
cens at  the  rapidly  increasing  numbers  of  the  pilgrims, 
especially  as  bands  of  thousands  began  to  appear,  led  by 
princes  or  great  nobles. 

With  the  advance  of  the  Seljuk  Turks,  in  the  eleventh 
century,  new  conditions  were  introduced.  They  were 
a  rough  and  barbarous  people  as  compared  with  the  Sar- 
acens whom  they  supplanted,  and  naturally  of  a  cruel 
disposition.  As  more  and  more  of  Palestine  and  of  its 
approaches  passed  under  their  control,  the  pilgrims  began 
to  meet  with  very  harsh  treatment.  The  great  sufferings 
and  the  miraculous  visions  of  Peter  the  Hermit  are  now 
known  to  have  been  the  inventions  of  a  later  age,  but  if 
he -did  not  suffer  what  he  was  fabled  to  have  undergone, 
undoubtedly  other  pilgrims  did  suffer  something  of  the 
sort.  At  last  the  worst  happened,  and  Jerusalem  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  Turks. 

But  the  immediate  impulse  to  the  first  crusade  came 
from  the  appeal  of  the  emperor  at  Constantinople  for 
aid.  The  emperor  at  this  time  was  Alexius  Comnenus, 
who  had  struggled  bravely  and  skilfully  for  more  than 
ten  years  against  attacks  from  every  quarter — Seljuks  on 
the  east,  the  Tartar  Petchenegs  in  the  Balkans,  and  the 
ambitious  Robert  Guiscard  on  the  shores  of  the  Adriatic. 


258  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

He  had  met  with  some  success  and  had  saved  at  least 
a  fragment  of  his  empire,  which  had  been  threatened 
with  total  destruction.  But  he  was  not  strong  enough 
alone  to  make  any  great  headway  against  the  Turks.  If 
Asia  Minor  was  to  be  recovered  and  a  real  restoration 
of  the  empire  to  be  accomplished,  he  must  have  larger 
forces  than  he  could  furnish  from  his  own  unaided  re- 
sources. In  March,  1095,  his  ambassadors  appealed  to 
Christendom  at  the  Council  of  Piacenza,  held  by  Urban 
II  at  a  moment  of  triumph  over  the  emperor  Henry  IV, 
and  later  in  the  year  at  the  Council  of  Clermont  in  France 
the  fiery  eloquence  of  the  pope  sanctioned  the  appeal 
and  aroused  the  whole  of  Europe. 

The  response  which  his  appeal  received  in  the  West 
was,  indeed,  far  beyond  the  emperor's  hopes,  or  wishes 
even.  The  number  of  the  crusaders  was  so  great,  much 
above  any  possibility  of  control  by  him,  that  the  fear  was 
at  once  aroused  in  his  mind  lest  their  advance  threat- 
ened his  empire  with  a  more  serious  danger  than  that 
from  the  Seljuks.  All  of  them,  he  might  well  beHeve, 
some  of  them  he  knew  already  to  his  cost  in  the  case  of 
the  Normans  of  southern  Italy,  were  actuated  chiefly 
by  motives  of  self-interest  and  the  desire  of  conquest. 
The  later  attitude  of  the  emperor  towards  his  invited 
allies  was  not  without  its  justification. 

The  response  of  the  West  to  the  appeal  of  the  East 
for  help  against  the  infidel  was  so  universal  and  over- 
whelming, because  of  the  combination  at  the  moment 
of  a  variety  of  influences  and  causes  tending  to  such  a 
result.  Of  these  we  may  easily  distinguish  three  lead- 
ing influences  which  were  especially  characteristic  of  the 
whole  eleventh  century — the  love  of  military  exploits 
and  adventures,  which  was  beginning,  even  in  that  cen- 
tury, to  express  itself  in  the  institutions  and  practices  of 
chivalry;  the  theocratic  ideas  which  were  at  that  time 
advancing  the  papacy  so  rapidly  to  its  highest  point  of 


THE   CRUSADES  259 

puvver;  and  an  ascetic  conception  of  life  and  Christian 
conduct  which,  hke  the  last,  was  not  only  cherished  in 
the  church,  but  held  almost  as  strongly  and  unquestion- 
ingly  by  the  great  mass  of  men  of  all  ranks. 

All  the  middle  ages  were  characterized  by  a  restless 
love  of  adventure,  and  by  greater  or  smaller  expeditions 
to  a  distance  to  satisfy  this  feeling  and  to  gain  glory 
and  wealth.  The  knight-errant  is  so  great  a  figure  in 
literature  because  he  was  so  frequent  in  the  life  of  the 
time,  and  even  more  universally  a  part  of  its  ideals  and 
imaginings.  The  knight-errant  himself  may  not  have 
been  common  so  early,  but  the  feeling  was  never  stronger 
than  in  the  eleventh  century,  and  especially  so  among 
the  Normans,  who  were  so  prominent  in  the  first  cru- 
sade, as  the  Norman  conquests  of  southern  Italy  and 
of  England  witness.  But  this  cause,  however  strong,  was 
not  the  decisive  one  in  the  crusades.  Had  it  been,  they 
would  not  have  ceased  when  they  did,  for  this  motive 
did  not  cease  with  them.  It  never  has  been  more  active, 
indeed,  than  it  is  to-day,  at  least  in  the  Anglo-Saxon 
world,  as  Africa,  and  the  Arctic  and  Antarctic  regions, 
and  a  hundred  other  things  abundantly  testify. 

Nor  was  the  influence  of  the  church,  nor  the  idea  that 
it  represented  God's  government,  and  that  through  its 
voice  God  spake  and  made  known  His  will  to  man,  the 
one  decisive  influence.  That  these  things  were  so,  men 
thoroughly  believed.  The  growing  strength  and  clearness 
of  the  belief  that  God  was  in  the  pope,  which  was  a  fea- 
ture of  the  reform  movement  of  the  eleventh  century,  was 
one  of  the  great  forces  which  aided  the  papacy  to  win  its 
triumph  over  the  emperor,  and  to  rise  to  the  summit  of 
its  power  over  the  church  and  over  the  state  as  well. 
The  call  of  the  pope  roused  Europe  to  the  great  crusades, 
partly,  at  least,  because  it  was  to  Europe  the  call  of  God. 
But  the  crusades  ceased  when  they  did,  not  because  the 
popes  ceased  to  urge  them  upon  Christendom,  nor  be- 


26o  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

cause  the  Christian  world  had  ceased  to  believe  in  the 
inspiration  of  the  pope,  for  both  these  facts  continued 
long  after  the  crusades  had  become  impossible. 

It  is  in  the  universal  prevalence  of  the  third  one  of 
the  influences  which  have  been  mentioned — the  ascetic 
feeling — that  we  must  find  the  one  decisive  cause  of  the 
crusades.  It  was  the  strong  hold  which  this  feeling  had 
upon  prince  as  well  as  peasant  which  made  the  crusades 
possible  as  a  great  European  movement.^  It  was  its 
decline  in  relative  power  as  a  determining  motive  of  life 
which  made  them  no  longer  possible. 

It  is  hard  for  us  in  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury to  understand  how  strong  a  controlling  force  this 
feeling  was  in  a  time  when  the  motives  and  interests 
which  shape  our  modern  life  had  not  come  into  existence, 
and  when  the  nature  and  laws  of  a  spiritual  world  were 
beyond  the  understanding  even  of  the  best.  The  dark  ter- 
rors of  the  world  of  lost  souls,  which  they  crudely  but 
vividly  pictured  to  their  minds  as  horrible  physical  tor- 
ments, pressed  upon  them  with  a  reality  almost  as  im- 
mediate as  that  of  the  world  in  which  they  were  really 
living.  With  their  limited  experience  and  scanty  knowl- 
edge, and  narrow  range  of  interests,  there  were  no  sources 
open  to  them  of  other  impressions  with  which  to  correct 
or  balance  these.  The  terror  of  an  awful  future  hung 
over  them  constantly;  and  to  escape  from  it,  to  secure 
their  safety  in  the  life  to  come,  was  one  of  the  most 
pressing  and  immediate  necessities  of  the  present  life.^ 

'  In  the  Anglo-Saxon  states,  in  the  first  two  hundred  years  after  their  con- 
version, thirty  kings  and  queens  went  into  the  cloister.  Instances  of  the 
same  thing  are  frequent  in  other  states.  The  passage  in  Einhard's  Life  of 
Charlemagne,  chap.  II,  on  the  cloister  life  of  Pippin's  brother,  Carloman, 
is  very  instructive  concerning  the  general  feeling  towards  monasticism. 

*  It  is  not  meant,  of  course,  that  this  was  an  ever-present  dread  from 
which  there  was  no  moment  of  escape.  Life  would  have  been  impossible 
if  that  had  been  the  case.  But  in  order  to  understand  many  of  the  most 
characteristic  features  of  the  first  half  of  the  middle  ages  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  hold  in  mind  the  fact  that,  relatively,  as  compared  with  later 
times,  these  feelings  were  a  constant  and  absorbing  reality  of  life. 


THE   CRUSADES  26 I 

But  with  the  crude  and  physical  conception  of  the  future 
world,  a  crude  and  physical  conception  of  the  means  of 
preparation  for  it  was  inevitable. 

The  history  of  monasticism,  of  pilgrimages,  and  of  the 
whole  penitential  discipline  of  the  church  is  full  of  in- 
stances to  show  that,  in  those  days,  there  existed  among 
the  highest  and  most  intelligent  classes  of  the  time  an 
intensity  of  belief  in  the  direct  spiritual  efhcacy  of  phys- 
ical penances  which  we  hardly  expect  to  find  to-day  in 
the  most  ignorant  and  superstitious.  A  pilgrimage  was 
not  an  expression  of  reverence  for  a  saintly  life,  nor  an 
act  of  worship  even.  It  was  in  itself  a  religious  act,  se- 
curing merit  and  reward  for  the  one  who  performed  it, 
balancing  a  certain  number  of  his  sins,  and  making  his 
escape  from  the  world  of  torment  hereafter  more  certain. 
The  more  distant  and  more  difhcult  the  pilgrimage,  the 
more  meritorious,  especially  if  it  led  to  such  supremely 
holy  places  as  those  which  had  been  sanctified  by  the 
presence  of  Christ  himself.  For  the  man  of  the  world, 
for  the  man  who  could  not,  or  would  not,  go  into  mon- 
asticism, the  pilgrimage  was  the  one  conspicuous  act  by 
which  he  could  satisfy  the  ascetic  need,  and  gain  its 
rewards. 

A  crusade  was  a  stupendous  pilgrimage,  under  espe- 
cially favorable  and  meritorious  conditions,  so  proclaimed 
universally  and  so  entered  upon  by  the  vast  majority  of 
those  who  took  part  in  it.  So  long  as  asceticism  as  a 
motive  influenced  strongly  princes,  and  great  nobles,  and 
the  higher  classes,  the  men  who  really  determined  events, 
the  great  crusades  were  possible.  When  other  interests 
of  a  more  immediate  sort  rose  in  the  place  of  this  motive, 
its  power  declined,  these  men  could  no  longer  be  led  by 
it  in  the  same  way,  and  the  crusades  ceased. 

But  this  last  suggestion  must  be  carried  further  back 
and  recognized  as  of  the  utmost  importance  in  aiding  us 
to  understand  the  reason  for  the  crusades  as  well  as  for 


262  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

their  cessation.  It  was  an  essential  condition  of  the  move- 
ment that  all  these  motives  and  causes  which  favored  the 
crusades  combined  together  in  their  influence  upon  the 
men  of  the  West  at  a  time  when  no  great  interests  had 
arisen  at  home  to  demand  their  attention  and  their 
energies.  The  time  of  the  migration  of  the  nations  was 
past;  even  the  viking  raids  had  ceased.  The  modern  na- 
tions with  their  problems,  hard  to  solve  but  pressing  for 
solution,  had  not  yet  come  into  existence.  Commerce 
was  in  its  infancy,  the  Third  Estate  had  hardly  begun  to 
form  itself,  and  the  revolution  which  it  would  work  was 
still  far  off.  None  of  these  existed  as  yet,  with  the  rival 
interests  which  they  were  soon  to  present  to  the  duty  of 
maintaining  a  Christian  kingdom  in  the  Holy  Land,  or 
even,  with  the  pressure  of  an  immediate  necessity,  to  the 
duty  of  saving  one  soul  by  a  penitential  pilgrimage.  All 
the  energy  and  enthusiasm  of  the  newly  formed  people 
had  no  other  channel  in  which  to  flow.  There  was  no 
other  great  and  worthy  object  to  which  to  devote  them- 
selves, and  they  devoted  themselves  to  this  so  long  as 
these  notions  and  influences  were  not  balanced  by  new 
and  opposing  ones. 

That  these  motives  were  strongly  at  work  through  the 
whole  eleventh  century,  and  gradually  turning  men's 
minds  towards  crusades— towards  armed  expeditions 
which  should  combine  adventurous  warfare  and  rich  con- 
quests from  the  Mohammedan  world  with  the  advan- 
tages of  holy  pilgrimages — can  easily  be  seen.  Single 
men  and  small  parties  some  time  before  had  begun  to 
undertake  the  Christian  duty  of  fighting  the  infidel  wher- 
ever he  was  to  be  found,  and  as  the  century  drew  to  a 
close  their  numbers  were  constantly  increasing.  The  little 
Christian  states  of  Spain  were  greatly  aided  in  their  con- 
tests with  the  Moors  by  reinforcements  of  this  sort,  and 
one  of  these  precrusades  led  to  the  founding  of  the  king- 
dom of  Portugal.     And  also  from  almost  every  state  of 


THE   CRUSADES  263 

the  West  devoted  knights  had  gone,  even  by  the  thou- 
sand, to  aid  the  Greek  emperor  against  the  Turks  before 
his  appeal  to  the  pope.  Some  of  the  Italian  cities  had 
combined  their  commercial  interests  and  their  Christian 
duty  in  attacks  upon  the  Saracens  of  the  western  Mediter- 
ranean regions.  In  1087  Pisa  and  Genoa,  at  the  instiga- 
tion of  Pope  Victor  III,  and  under  the  holy  banner  of 
St.  Peter,  gained  important  successes  in  Tunis,  and  com- 
pelled the  emir  to  recognize  the  overlordship  of  the  pope. 
A  Httle  earlier  Pope  Gregory  VII  had  conceived  the  plan 
of  sending  a  great  army  against  the  East  to  re-establish 
there  the  true  faith,  but  his  contest  with  the  Emperor 
Henry  IV  had  allowed  him  no  opportunity  to  carry  out 
the  plan.  The  overwhelming  enthusiasm  of  the  first  cru- 
sade was  the  sudden  breaking  forth  of  a  feehng  which 
had  long  been  growing  in  intensity,  because  now  it  had 
gained  the  highest  possible  sanction  as  the  will  of  God 
and  a  favorable  opportunity  to  express  itself  in  action. 

The  crusades  continued  from  the  end  of  the  eleventh 
to  near  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century,  a  period  of 
about  two  hundred  years.  During  this  time  eight  cru- 
sades, as  they  are  commonly  reckoned,  occurred,  with 
many  smaller  expeditions  of  the  same  sort.  Of  these  at 
least  the  first  four,  falling  within  the  first  hundred  years, 
or  barely  more,  are  great  European  movements  shared  by 
many  nations  and  thoroughly  stirring  the  life  of  the  West. 

The  first  crusade  was  led  by  princes  and  great  nobles, 
from  Normandy,  of  the  royal  house  of  France,  of  Tou- 
louse, of  eastern  Germany  and  southern  Italy.  It  went 
overland  to  Constantinople,  forced  its  way  through  Asia 
Minor,  captured  Antioch  from  the  Turks  after  a  long 
siege,  and  with  greatly  reduced  numbers,  in  1099,  stormed 
Jerusalem,  then  in  possession  of  the  Fatimite  caliphs  of 
Egypt.  Its  conquests  it  formed  into  a  loosely  organized 
feudal  state,  the  kingdom  of  Jerusalem,  divided  into  a 
number  of  great  fiefs  practically  independent. 


264  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

The  second  crusade,  fifty  years  later,  was  led  by  the 
Emperor  Konrad  III  and  by  King  Louis  VII  of  France 
on  the  news  of  the  fall  of  Edessa,  the  outpost  of  the 
kingdom  of  Jerusalem  against  the  Turks.  It  attempted 
to  follow  the  overland  route,  but  failed  to  find  a  passage 
through  Asia  Minor,  and  the  remnants  of  the  armies 
made  the  last  part  of  the  journey  by  sea.  In  the  Holy 
Land  it  attempted  nothing  but  a  perfunctory  attack  on 
Damascus. 

The  third,  which  is  perhaps  the  best  known  of  the 
crusades,  was  set  in  motion  by  the  capture  of  Jerusalem 
by  Saladin  in  1187.  It  was  led  by  Richard  the  Lion- 
heart  of  England,  Philip  Augustus  of  France,  and  the 
Emperor  Frederick  I.  The  emperor  followed  the  old 
overland  route  and  died  in  Asia  Minor.  Richard  and 
Philip  made  the  passage  wholly  by  sea.  The  difference 
in  character  of  these  two  men,  and  the  many  causes  of 
disagreement  which  existed  between  them,  prevented  any 
great  success,  and  the  crusade  continued  to  be  a  failure 
after  Philip  returned  to  France,  largely  because  of  Rich- 
ard's instability  and  lack  of  fixed  purpose. 

A  decade  after,  under  the  greatest  of  the  popes,  Inno- 
cent III,  the  fourth  crusade  assembled,  with  high  hopes, 
in  northern  Italy  to  be  transported  probably  to  Egypt;  by 
the  Venetians,  but  it  never  saw  its  destination.  It  was 
turned  into  a  great  commercial  speculation,  captured 
Constantinople,  and  erected  there  the  Latin  empire,  an- 
other feudal  state,  which  lasted  past  the  middle  of  the 
thirteenth  century. 

The  later  crusades  need  not  be  noticed.  They  are  ex- 
peditions of  single  nations  and  lack  the  general  character 
of  the  first  four.  The  Emperor  Frederick  II  by  treaty 
re-estabhshed  for  a  brief  time  the  kingdom  of  Jerusalem; 
and  St.  Louis,  at  his  death,  in  1270,  closed  the  series  of 
the  crusades  usually  numbered  with  the  true  spirit  and 
high  Christian  motives  of  the  ideal  crusader. 


THE   CRUSADES  265 

In  this  line  of  events  two  things  are  to  be  especially 
noticed  as  characteristic,  and  as  of  assistance  in  enabling 
us  to  see  the  connection  between  the  events  themselves 
and  the  results  which  followed  from  them 

One  of  them  is  the  different  part  taken  in  these  expedi- 
tions by  the  states  of  Italy  as  compared  with  the  other 
states.  The  Normans  of  the  south  enter  into  the  first 
crusade  like  the  other  Europeans,  and  in  some  of  the 
later  crusades  the  feudal  parts  of  Italy  have  their  share. 
But,  even  in  the  first  crusade,  some  of  the  city  states  of 
Italy  appear  as  furnishing  ships  and  conveying  supplies 
to  the  real  crusaders,  and  as  time  goes  on  this  comes  to 
be  a  more  and  more  important  share  of  the  movement 
which  falls  to  them.  Italy  does  not  furnish  warriors;  it 
furnishes  ships,  transports  men  and  supplies,  not  for  re- 
v/ards  in  the  world  to  come  but  for  cash,  sells  and  buys, 
and  is  constantly  on  the  watch  for  commercial  advan- 
tages. 

The  other  fact  is  the  gradual  change  in  the  route  by 
which  the  crusaders  reached  the  Holy  Land  as  the  period 
advanced.  The  first  went  wholly  overland;  the  second 
almost  wholly,  making  only  the  last  stage  by  water. 
Two  of  the  three  divisions  of  the  third  crusade  went 
wholly  by  water,  and  all  the  later  crusades,  even  that 
of  Andrew  of  Hungary.  There  was  a  constantly  increas- 
ing demand  for  ships  and  sailors,  and  a  constantly  in- 
creasing ability  to  meet  that  demand. 

Before  taking  up  in  detail  the  results  of  the  crusades 
it  is  important  to  notice  one  fact  in  the  general  history 
of  the  middle  ages  of  which  they  are  at  once  a  sign  and 
a  further  cause.  They  were  a  great  common  movement 
of  all  Europe,  shared  in  alike  in  motive  and  spirit  and 
action,  and  on  equal  terms,  by  all  the  nations  of  the 
West  and  by  people  of  every  rank.  They  are  an  indica- 
tion, therefore,  that  the  days  of  isolation  and  separation 


266  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

are  passing  away.  In  one  direction,  at  least,  common 
feelings  and  common  ideals  have  come  into  existence 
through  all  the  nations,  and  a  consciousness  of  the  com- 
mon interests  of  the  Christian  world  as  against  the  Mo- 
hammedan. And  these  feelings  were  now  held  not  merely 
by  a  person  here  and  there,  but  by  the  great  mass  of 
men.  Christendom,  as  a  great  international  community 
which  had  never  entirely  ceased  to  exist  since  the  days 
of  Roman  unity,  had  come  to  a  clearer  consciousness  of 
itself. 

That  consciousness  was  now  to  grow  constantly  clearer 
and  to  embrace  by  degrees  all  sides  of  civilization.  The 
crusades  are  themselves  a  great  cause  leading  to  this  re- 
sult. By  bringing  together  the  men  of  all  nations,  led 
by  a  common  purpose  and  striving  for  a  common  object, 
they  made  them  better  acquainted  with  one  another, 
created  common  needs  and  desires,  and  immensely  stim- 
ulated intercommunication  of  all  kinds— manifestly  the 
necessary  conditions  of  a  community  of  nations.  It  was 
because  these  things  were  so  generally  wanting  that  the 
feudal  isolation  of  the  preceding  age  had  been  possible. 
When  they  began  to  exist  and  to  increase  rapidly,  as 
they  did  under  the  influence  of  the  crusades,  the  modern 
common  life  of  the  world  had  begun  to  form  itself,  and  a 
great  step  had  been  taken  out  of  the  middle  ages. 

It  was  no  sHght  thing,  also,  that  the  age  of  the  cru- 
sades was  an  age  of  intense  excitement  which  seized 
equally  upon  those  who  stayed  and  those  who  went.  It 
was  a  time  when  all  men  were  stirred  by  a  deep  enthu- 
siasm, and  the  almost  stationary  feudal  society  was  pro- 
foundly moved  through  all  its  ranks.  It  is  a  common 
observation  that  whatever  thus  awakens  the  emotions  of 
men  and  throws  society  into  a  ferAent  of  feeling  and 
action  is  a  great  impelling  force  which  sets  all  the  wheels 
of  progress  in  motion  and  opens  a  new  age  of  achieve- 
ment. 


THE   CRUSADES  267 

Nor  is  it  to  be  overlooked  that  they  were  on  the  whole 
generous  motives  and  noble  and  high  ideals  which  moved 
men  in  the  crusades.  There  was  selfishness  and  base- 
ness in  plenty  no  doubt,  but  the  controlling  emotion  with 
the  most  of  the  crusaders  was,  especially  in  the  early 
crusades,  a  lofty  and  ideal  enthusiasm. 

In  the  way  of  the  increase  of  actual  knowledge  and 
of  a  direct  influence  upon  learning,  the  immediate  work 
of  the  crusades  was  not  great.  The  Greeks  in  some  re- 
spects, and  the  Saracens  in  many,  were  far  in  advance 
of  the  crusaders.  The  Christians  had  many  things  to 
learn  of  the  Mohammedans,  and  did  in  the  end  learn 
them;  but  it  was  not  in  the  East  nor  in  immediate  con- 
nection with  the  crusades.  Some  few  things  were  learned 
directly,  especially  in  the  line  of  geographical  knowledge, 
but  the  great  influence  of  the  crusades  upon  learning  was 
indirect,  in  creating  a  consciousness  of  ignorance  and 
awakening  a  desire  to  know,  so  that  the  work  of  the 
crusades  in  this  direction  was  to  raise  the  level  of  gen- 
eral intelligence  rather  than  to  increase  very  greatly  the 
knowledge  of  specific  facts. 

They  gave  to  the  people  who  took  part  in  them  the  ad- 
vantages of  travel.  They  brought  them  into  contact  with 
new  scenes  and  new  peoples,  and  showed  them  other  ways 
of  doing  things.  Above  all,  they  made  them  conscious 
of  the  fact  that  there  were  people  in  the  world  superior 
to  themselves  in  knowledge  and  government  and  man- 
ners and  all  civilization,  and  that  they  had  themselves 
many  things  to  learn  and  to  reform  before  they  could 
really  claim  the  high  rank  in  the  world  which  they  had 
supposed  they  occupied.  This  fact  is  curiously  illus- 
trated in  the  increasing  respect  which  the  writers  of  the 
age  show  for  the  Mohammedans,  and  it  is  a  most  im- 
portant fact  in  the  histor}'  of  civilization.  The  mind  of 
the  West  was  aroused  and  stimulated  by  contact  with  a 
higher  civilization,   although  it  had  not  yet  discovered 


268  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

its  best  teachers  nor  the  right  road  by  which  to  reach 
true  science.  The  intense  intellectual  eagerness  of  the 
last  part  of  the  twelfth  and  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
though  it  led  into  the  barren  wastes  of  scholasticism, 
was  the  beginning  of  modern  science  and  the  first  step 
towards  the  revival  of  learning. 

We  can  trace  the  beginning  of  this  desire  to  know,  as 
we  can  of  so  many  other  things  which  we  call  the  results 
of  the  crusades,  to  times  before  these  began.  Even  in 
the  tenth  century  can  be  found  many  indications  that 
the  mind  of  Europe  was  beginning  to  awake,  to  feel  an 
eager  desire  to  learn,  and  even  to  be  conscious  of  the 
fact  that  they  must  turn  to  the  Arabs  for  instruction. 
Gerbert  of  Rheims — Sylvester  II — is  a  precursor  in  spirit 
of  Roger  Bacon  and  of  Laurentius  Valla,  as  Scotus  Eri- 
gena — in  the  century  before — is  of  his  greater  namesake 
of  the  thirteenth  century.  We  should  Hke  to  believe  also 
that  the  heretics  who  were  burned  at  Orleans  in  1022, 
and  of  whom  we  know  almost  nothing,  represent  a  faint 
stirring  of  that  critical  reason  which  makes  a  clearer  de- 
mand in  Abelard  in  regard  to  theology,  and  in  the  Wal- 
denses  in  regard  to  practical  Christianity. 

But  it  is  only  in  the  thirteenth  century  that  we  reach 
the  first  great  intellectual  age  since  ancient  history  closed, 
one  of  the  greatest,  indeed,  of  all  history.  If  the  work 
to  which  it  especially  devoted  itself,  an  abstract  and  spec- 
ulative philosophy,  has  been  left  behind  by  the  world's 
advance,  it  was  nevertheless,  in  its  day,  one  great  step 
in  that  advance,  and  in  the  founding  of  the  universities 
the  century  made  a  direct  and  permanent  contribution 
to  the  civilization  of  the  world. 

The  strongest  and  most  decisive  of  the  immediate  in- 
fluences of  the  crusades  was  that  which  they  exerted 
upon  commerce.  They  created  a  constant  demand  for 
the  transportation  of  men  and  of  supplies,  built  up  of 
themselves  a  great  carrying  trade,  improved  the  art  of 


THE   CRUSADES  269 

navigation,  opened  new  markets,  taught  the  use  of  new 
commodities,  created  new  needs,  made  known  new  routes 
and  new  peoples  with  whom  to  trade,  stimulated  explora- 
tions, and  in  a  hundred  ways  which  cannot  be  mentioned 
introduced  a  new  commercial  age  whose  character  and 
results  must  be  examined  in  detail  hereafter. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  direct  results  of  the  cru- 
sades in  this  direction  was  the  extensive  exploration  of 
Asia  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  by  Eu- 
ropean travellers  of  whom  ]Marco  Polo  is  the  most  famil- 
iar example,  but  only  one  of  a  host  of  men  almost  equally 
deserving  of  fame.  There  is  nothing  which  illustrates 
better  than  these  explorations  the  stimulus  of  the  cru- 
sades, the  energy  and  the  broadening  of  mind,  and  the 
new  ideas  which  are  characteristic  of  the  age. 

In  the  political  sphere  the  age  is  as  full  of  change  as 
elsewhere.  The  details  must  be  reserved  for  a  future 
chapter,  but  the  general  features  may  be  indicated  here. 
The  great  fact  which  is  everywhere  characteristic  of  the 
time  is  the  rise  into  power  of  the  Third  Estate  and  the 
fall  of  the  feudal  noble  from  the  political  position  which 
he  had  occupied.  It  will  be  seen  later  that,  in  the  main, 
this  was  due  to  the  increase  of  commerce  and  only  indi- 
rectly to  the  crusades,  but  in  one  or  two'  ways  they  di- 
rectly aided  in  the  process.  The  noble,  influenced  only 
by  the  feelings  of  his  class,  and  thrown  upon  his  own 
resources  for  the  expenses  of  his  crusade,  did  not  count 
the  cost,  or  he  hoped  to  gain  greater  possessions  in  the 
Holy  Land  than  those  he  sacrificed  at  home.  Large  num- 
bers of  the  old  families  were  ruined  and  disappeared,  and 
their  possessions  fell  to  anyone  who  was  able  to  take 
advantage  of  the  situation.  Whether  these  lands  passed 
into  the  hands  of  rich  burghers,  as  they  did  in  some 
cases,  or  not,  was  a  matter  of  little  importance,  since  the 
decline  of  the  old  nobility  and  the  substitution  for  it  of 
a  new  nobility  was  a  great  relative  gain  for  the  Third 
Estate  as  it  was  for  the  crown. 


270  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Wherever  the  royal  power  was  in  a  position  to  take 
advantage  of  the  changes  of  the  time,  as  was  notably  the 
case  in  France,  it  gained  constantly  in  relative  strength, 
and  by  the  time  the  crusades  were  over,  feudalism  had 
disappeared  as  a  real  political  institution,  and  the  form- 
ing government  of  the  modern  state  had  taken  its  place 
— not  that  the  resistance  of  feudalism  to  this  revolution 
was  by  any  means  over,  but  the  opportunity  for  a  com- 
plete \'ictory  was  clearly  before  the  king. 

Of  considerable  significance  also,  in  this  direction,  is 
the  part  which  the  lower  classes  of  the  population  took 
in  the  crusades,  seen  most  clearly  perhaps  in  the  first. 
This  has  the  appearance  to  us  of  a  general  movement 
among  the  peasantry,  and  it  was  a  sign,  certainly,  of  dis- 
content with  their  lot,  a  vague  and  ignorant  feeling  that 
improvement  was  possible  in  some  way.  It  was  an  evi- 
dence also  of  some  new  confidence  and  self-reliance  on 
their  part,  and  no  doubt  it  did  in  some  instances  improve 
their  condition.  This  movement  is,  on  the  whole,  how- 
ever, to  be  regarded  like  the  peasant  wars  of  later  times, 
to  which  it  is  in  its  real  character  very  similar,  rather  as 
the  sign  of  a  revolution  which  is  slowly  working  itself  out 
in  other  ways  than  as  in  itself  a  real  means  of  advance. 

These  results,  which  have  been  briefly  stated,  when 
taken  together  indicate,  clearly  enough  perhaps,  the  im- 
mediate changes  which  the  crusades  produced,  and  also 
why  they  came  to  an  end  when  they  did.  The  changes 
which  they  represent  had  created  a  new  world.  The  old 
feelings  and  judgments  and  desires  which  had  made  the 
crusades  possible  no  longer  existed  in  their  relative 
strength.  New  interests  had  arisen  which  men  had  not 
known  before,  but  which  now  seemed  to  them  of  such 
supreme  and  immediate  importance  that  they  could  not 
be  called  away  from  them  to  revive  past  and  forgotten 
interests,  though  popes  might  continue  to  urge  the  old 
motives.  The  less  intelhgent  part  of  the  people,  and  the 
dreamer,   or   the   mind   wholly   centred   in   the   church. 


THE   CRUSADES  271 

might  still  be  led  by  the  old  feelings,  and  might  desire 
to  continue  the  crusade,  and  actual  attempts  to  do  so 
might  be  made,  but  the  working  mind  of  Europe  could 
no  longer  be  moved.  Even  the  popes  themselves  were 
many  times  influenced  by  the  spirit  of  the  new  age  and 
endeavored  to  make  use  of  the  crusading  motives  and 
passions  which  still  lingered  to  accomphsh  their  own  polit- 
ical ends  in  the  interests  of  their  Itahan  kingdom. 

One  point  which  has  been  briefly  referred  to  already 
needs  to  be  distinctly  emphasized  in  closing  the  account 
of  the  age.  The  crusades  work  great  changes,  they 
clearly  impart  a  powerful  impetus  to  advance  in  every 
direction;  a  far  more  rapid  progress  of  civilization  dates 
from  them.  But  it  seems  to  be  equally  clear  that  in  no 
single  case  do  they  originate  the  change.  The  beginnings 
of  the  advance  go  further  back  into  the  comparatively 
unprogressive  ages  that  precede  them.  The  same  changes 
would  have  taken  place  without  them,  though  more 
slowly  and  with  greater  difficulty.  Indeed  we  may  say 
of  the  age  of  the  crusades,  as  of  every  great  revolutionary 
age  in  history,  that  it  is  a  time,  not  so  much  of  the  crea- 
tion of  new  forces,  as  of  the  breaking  forth  in  unusual 
and  unrestrained  action  of  forces  which  have  been  for  a 
long  time  at  work  beneath  the  surface,  quietly  and  un- 
observed. 

One  most  prominent  institution  of  the  middle  ages, 
which  deserves  a  fuller  treatment  than  can  be  given  it 
here,  rose  to  its  height  during  the  crusades  and  in  close 
connection  with  them — that  of  chivalry.  It  goes  back 
for  the  origin  both  of  its  forms  and  of  its  ideals  to  the 
early  Germans.  Certain  forms  which  the  primitive  Ger- 
man tribes  had  in  common — arming  the  young  warrior 
and  the  single  combat,  for  instance — and  certain  concep- 
tions of  character  and  conduct  which  they  especially  em- 
phasized— personal  bravery,  truth-telHng,  and  the  respect 


272  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

for  woman  among  them — were  developed,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  church  and  of  Christianity,  into  the  later 
ceremonies  of  chivalry,  partly  solemn  and  partly  barba- 
rous, and  into  the  lofty  but  narrow  ideal  of  conduct  which 
it  cherished.  The  arrangements  of  the  feudal  system 
rendered  easy  the  prevalence  of  its  forms,  and  the  spirit 
of  the  crusading  age  heightened  its  conception  of  char- 
acter and  made  it  seem  like  a  universal  duty,  so  that  it 
came,  for  two  or  three  centuries,  to  occupy  a  large  place 
in  the  life  of  the  time,  and  relatively  a  larger  place  in  lit- 
erature than  in  life. 

In  the  fifteenth  century  chivalry  as  an  external  insti- 
tution, a  matter  of  forms  and  ceremonies,  rapidly  de- 
clined. The  ideal  of  social  conduct  and  character  which 
it  created  never  passed  away,  on  the  contrary,  but  be- 
came a  permanent  influence  in  civilization.  In  English 
we  express  very  much  the  same  ideal  in  certain  uses  of 
the  word  gentleman,  in  the  phrase  "the  true  gentle- 
man," for  example,  and,  in  most  respects,  no  better  de- 
scription of  that  character  can  be  made  now  than  was 
made  by  Chaucer,  in  the  description  of  the  knight,  in 
his  prologue  to  the  Canterbury  Tales,  at  the  close  of  the 
age  of  chivalry.^  The  reason  why  this  modern  concep- 
tion of  social  character  insists  so  strongly  upon  certain 
virtues,  and  omits  entirely  aU  consideration  of  certain 
others,  equally  or  even  more  essential  to  a  really  high 
character,  is  to  be  found  in  the  peculiar  conditions  of  the 
age  of  chivalry,  its  ethical  limitations  and  its  class  rela- 
tions. 

It  was,  as  far  as  it  went,  a  Christian  ideal  of  Hfe  and 
manners — truth,  loyalty,  uniform  and  unbroken  courtesy, 
bravery,  devotion  to  the  service  of  the  weak,  especially 
of  one's  own  class,  the  sacrifice  of  self  to  others  in  cer- 
tain cases,  the  seeking  of  the  place  of  danger  when  one 
is  responsible  for  others — and  such  an  ideal  would  cer- 

*  Lines  68-72. 


THE   CRUSADES  273 

tainly  have  come  into  civilization  in  some  way.  His- 
torically it  was  through  chivalry  that  it  became  a  social 
law.  In  making  up  a  full  account,  however,  the  other 
fact  must  be  included,  that  the  universal  prevalence  of 
the  chivalric  standard  may  have  made  the  proper  empha- 
sis of  other  virtues,  which  it  omitted,  more  difficult  than 
it  would  otherwise  have  been.^ 

We  have  reached  with  the  crusades,  then,  the  turning- 
point  of  the  middle  ages.  From  this  time  on,  history 
grows  more  diversified,  and  we  cannot,  as  heretofore,  fol- 
low a  single  line  of  development  and  include  within  it 
the  whole  field.  Three  or  four  great  lines  of  progress  run 
through  the  closing  half  of  medieval  history,  lines  which 
are  easily  distinguished  from  one  another  and  which  are 
important  enough  for  separate  treatment.  They  vAW  be 
taken  up  in  the  following  order,  which  is  roughly  the 
natural  relation  of  their  dependence  one  upon  another. 
First,  the  commercial  development;  second,  the  forma- 
tion of  the  modern  nations;  third,  the  revival  of  learning; 
fourth,  the  changes  in  the  ecclesiastical  world;  and  fi- 
nally, the  Reformation,  the  age  of  transition  to  modern 
history. 

While  we  separate  these  lines  from  one  another  for 
convenience  of  study,  it  must  be  carefully  remembered 
that  they  are  constantly  related  to  one  another,  that  they 
influence  one  another  at  every  step  of  the  progress,  and 
that  perhaps  a  new  advance  in  some  one  of  them  is  more 
frequently  dependent  upon  an  advance  in  another  fine 
than  upon  one  in  its  own.  The  attempt  will  be  made  to 
make  this  interdependence  of  the  various  lines  of  activity 
as  evident  as  possible,  but  it  should  never  be  lost  sight 
of  by  the  reader. 

'  The  reader  of  Froissart's  Chronicles,  or  of  Malory's  King  Arthur,  needs 
no  citation  of  special  cases  to  convince  him  of  the  coarseness  and  barbarism 
which  still  remained  under  the  superficial  polish  of  the  age  of  chivalry,  or 
of  its  entire  disregard  of  some  virtues. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE   GROWTH   OF   COMMERCE   AND   ITS   RESULTS 

If  it  can  be  said  at  all  that  there  is  one  line  of  advance 
in  civilization  which  is  a  necessary  condition  of  progress 
in  other  directions  it  would  seem  to  be  economic  advance. 
It  is  no  doubt  true  that  more  than  once  in  history,  under 
peculiar  circumstances,  times  which  appear  to  be  those 
of  remarkable  economic  advancement  have  brought  with 
them  dangers  which  seemed  to  threaten  the  very  exis- 
tence of  civilization  itself,  as  in  the  last  days  of  the  Roman 
republic.  It  is  also  true  that  sometimes  economic  im- 
provement has  been  made  possible  only  by  advance  in 
other  Hnes,  like  the  estabhshment  of  a  better  govern- 
ment, as  in  Italy,  for  instance,  during  the  reign  of  Theod- 
oric  the  Ostrogoth. 

The  truth  is,  the  various  lines  of  progress  are  so  inter- 
woven, as  has  already  been  said,  advance  in  any  is  so 
dependent  on  advance  in  all,  that  it  is  not  possible  to 
say  that  any  one  of  them,  either  in  theory  or  in  fact,  is 
a  necessary  condition  of  the  others.  But  this  much  is 
true,  that  a  country  which  is  falling  into  economic  decay 
is  declining  in  other  things  as  well,  and  that  no  general 
and  permanent  progress  of  civilization  is  possible  unless 
it  is  based — the  word  seems  hardly  too  strong  to  use 
even  if  it  is  a  begging  of  the  question — on  economic  im- 
provement. 

This  was  emphatically  true  of  the  period  of  medieval 
history  which  extends  from  the  crusades  to  the  Reforma- 
tion. I  hope  to  make  evident,  in  the  portion  of  this 
book  which  follows,  how  completely  the  various  lines  of 

274 


THE    GROWTH    OF    COMMERCE    AND    ITS    RESULTS       275 

growth  which  began  an  increasing  activity  from  the  cru- 
sades, and  which  led  out  from  the  middle  ages  into  mod- 
ern history,  were  dependent  for  their  accelerated  motion, 
for  immense  reinforcement,  if  not  for  actual  beginning, 
upon  the  rapidly  developing  commercial  activities  of  the 
time.  Bad  roads  and  no  bridges;  the  robber  baron  or 
band  of  outlaws  to  be  expected  in  every  favorable  spot; 
legalized  feudal  exactions  at  the  borders  of  every  little 
fief;  no  generally  prevaihng  system  of  law  uniform 
throughout  the  country  and  really  enforced ;  a  scanty  and 
uncertain  currency,  making  contracts  difficult  and  pay- 
ment in  kind  and  in  services  almost  universal;  interests 
and  desires  narrowed  down  to  the  mere  neighborhood; 
these  were  the  conditions  of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth 
centuries.  A  successful  commerce  meant  necessarily  a 
ceaseless  war  upon  all  these  things,  and  the  introduction 
of  better  conditions  in  these  respects  was,  almost  in  itself, 
the  transformation  of  the  medieval  into  the  modern. 

The  German  invasions  had  broken  up  the  organization 
of  Roman  commerce  and  destroyed  large  amounts  of 
capital.  They  had  diminished  the  currency  in  circula- 
tion, lowered  the  condition  of  the  Roman  artisan  class 
and  broken  up  their  organizations,  impaired  the  means 
of  intercommunication,  and  brought  in  as  the  ruKng  race 
in  every  province  a  people  on  a  much  lower  plane  of 
economic  development,  with  fewer  wants,  hardly  above 
the  stage  of  barter,  and  entirely  unused  to  the  compli- 
cated machinery  of  general  commerce.  Such  a  change  was 
a  severe  blow  to  commerce.  Large  parts  of  the  empire 
fell  back  into  a  more  primitive  condition,  where  the 
domain  supplied  almost  all  its  own  wants,  very  few  things 
being  bought  from  without  and  very  few  being  sold. 

But  the  invasions  did  not  entirely  destroy  commerce. 
Even  in  the  worst  times  there  can  be  found  many  traces 
of  what  may  be  called  interstate  exchanges,  of  com- 
merce between  the  East  and  the  West,  or  between  the 


276  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

North  and  the  South.  The  church  needed,  for  its  orna- 
ments and  vestments  and  in  its  services,  cloths  and  spices 
and  other  articles  which  could  not  be  obtained  in  the 
West.  Nobles  made  use  of  numerous  articles  of  luxury 
and  display  in  a  life  that  was,  on  the  whole,  hard  and 
comfortless.  Where  wealth  existed  there  was  a  tendency 
to  invest  it  in  articles  which  would  store  great  value  in 
small  space,  and  which  could  be  quickly  turned  into 
money,  or  exchanged.  The  demand,  consequently,  for 
the  articles  which  commerce  would  supply,  though  it  was 
limited,  was  strong,  and  of  a  sort  which  insured  a  great 
profit. 

Under  such  circumstances  the  importation  of  the  goods 
needed  was  certain  to  exist.  Indeed  commerce  never 
died  out.  Every  period  of  good  government  in  any  of 
the  new  German  states,  as  under  Theodoric,  even  if  it 
lasted  but  for  a  moment,  saw  a  revival  of  it.  Justinian's 
conquests  in  Italy  created  a  natural  line  of  intercourse 
between  the  East  and  the  West  which  continued  unbroken 
until  the  crusades.  Even  before  his  invasion,  the  Vene- 
tians had  the  reputation  of  making  long  voyages,  and 
notwithstanding  the  troublous  times  which  followed,  their 
commerce  was  firmly  established  by  the  eighth  century. 
Before  the  eleventh,  nearly  all  the  eastern  goods  which 
found  their  way  into  the  West  came  through  Italy,  where 
Venice  and  Amalfi  were  the  two  chief  ports.  Occasion- 
ally something  reached  southern  Gaul  and  eastern  Spain 
directly,  but  the  overland  route  through  the  Danube 
valley  seems  to  have  been  used  only  for  a  brief  interval 
or  two.  In  the  eleventh  century  commerce  appears  to 
have  developed  rapidly  for  the  time.  The  conditions 
which  rendered  the  crusades  possible,  that  is,  the  begin- 
nings of  something  like  a  real  community  life  in  Europe, 
showed  themselves  also,  and  earlier  than  anywhere  else, 
in  an  increasing  commerce,  and  new  cities  came  up  to 
take  part  in  it.     Pisa  and  Genoa  were  able  to  conquer 


THE    GROWTH    OF    COMMERCE    AND    ITS    RESULTS      277 

privileges  from  the  Mohammedan  states  of  northern 
Africa.  Marseilles  was  in  a  position  to  obtain  extensive 
favors  from  the  first  crusaders.  Inland  cities,  also,  had 
begun  to  have  extended  relations,  as  distributing  points 
for  the  goods  which  reached  them  overland  from  Italy, 
and  a  sea  commerce  of  some  importance  had  begun  in 
the  North. 

The  crusades,  then,  did  not  originate  commerce,  but 
they  imparted  to  it  a  new  and  powerful  impulse.  They 
created  at  once  a  strong  demand  for  increased  means 
of  transportation.  The  first  crusade  went  overland,  but 
the  later  ones  partly  or  wholly  by  water.  The  occupa- 
tion of  the  Holy  Land  by  the  Christians  made  necessary 
a  more  lively  and  frequent  intercourse  between  East  and 
West.  The  crusader  states  were  able  to  maintain  them- 
selves only  by  constant  new  arrivals  of  men  and  sup- 
pHes.  The  West  was  made  acquainted  with  new  articles 
of  use  or  luxury,  and  desires  and  needs  rapidly  increased. 
Connections  were  formed  with  new  peoples,  as  with  the 
Mongols.  New  commercial  routes  were  opened  up,  geo- 
graphical knowledge  increased,  and  new  regions  appeared 
in  the  maps. 

The  change  in  the  general  atmosphere  of  Europe  which 
accompanied  the  crusades,  the  broadening  of  mind  and 
the  growth  of  common  interests,  favored  increased  inter- 
communication and  exchange,  and,  from  the  first  crusade 
on,  commerce  increased  with  great  rapidity,  penetrated 
constantly  into  new  regions,  aided  the  growth  of  manu- 
facturing industries,  multiplied  the  articles  with  which  it 
dealt,  improved  greatly  its  own  machinery — the  art  of 
navigation,  currency,  forms  of  credit,  maritime  law,  and 
mercantile  organization — and  exerted  a  profound  influ- 
ence upon  every  department  of  human  activity. 

The  regions  embraced  within  the  world  commerce  of 
the  middle  ages  may  be  divided  for  convenience  of  ex- 


278  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

amination  into  three  divisions— the  East,  the  North,  and 
the  states,  chiefly  Mediterranean,  which  acted  as  middle- 
men between  these  two  extremes. 

The  goal  at  the  East  was  India,  though  there  was  for  a 
time  some  direct  overland  connection  with  China  start- 
ing from  the  Black  Sea.  From  the  East  came  the  articles 
of  luxury  and  show,  which  formed  the  bulk  of  medieval 
commerce,  and  returned  enormous  profits — spices,  incense, 
perfumes,  precious  stones,  carpets,  hangings,  and  rich 
cloths.  The  Christian  merchants  of  Europe  could  not 
purchase  these  goods  direct  from  India,  but  only  from 
the  ISIohammedan  states  of  western  Asia,  which  main- 
tained relations  with  the  farther  East.  These  states  could 
sell  to  India  but  few  articles  in  exchange — horses,  linen, 
and  manufactured  metals,  especially  weapons — and  large 
quantities  of  the  precious  metals  had  to  be  exported  to 
settle  the  balance.  These  oriental  goods  reached  the 
West  by  a  variety  of  routes,  some  coming  through  the 
Black  Sea,  where  Trdbizond  was  an  important  port;  others 
coming  up  the  Persian  Gulf  and  the  Euphrates,  and  reach- 
ing Mediterranean  ports  like  Antioch  or  Bey  root;  others 
by  the  more  southern  route,  through  the  Red  Sea  and 
Egypt.  The  frequency  of  the  use  and  the  profitableness 
of  any  one  of  these  routes  depended  upon  the  political 
condition  of  the  intermediary  Mohammedan  states,  and 
varied  greatly  at  different  times.  With  the  advance  of 
the  Turks  the  more  northern  lines  were  gradually  ren- 
dered impossible,  and  this  was  one  of  the  chief  causes 
which  led  to  the  rapid  decline  of  the  commerce  of  Genoa 
in  the  fifteenth  century,  her  dependence  being  chiefly 
upon  the  Black  Sea  routes.  On  the  eve  of  the  great  dis- 
coveries of  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  almost  the 
only  secure  and  profitable  line  of  connection  with  India 
was  through  Egypt. 

The  Mohammedan  states  took  of  the  Western  mer- 
chants a  much  greater  variety  of  goods   than  India— 


THE   GROWTH    OF   COMMERCE   AND   ITS   RESULTS      279 

food  supplies,  grain,  oil,  and  honey,  metals  and  minerals, 
lead,  iron,  steel,  tin,  sulphur,  cloth  in  great  variety, 
leather,  wool,  soap,  furs,  and  slaves — Circassians  being 
conveyed,  for  instance,  from  the  Black  Sea  to  Egypt, 
and  even  Europeans  being  sold  without  much  hesitation 
by  their  Christian  brethren  when  opportunity  offered. 
The  ships  of  the  West,  loaded  with  the  Eastern  goods 
which  they  had  purchased,  made  the  return  voyage,  be- 
set with  dangers  from  pirate  attacks  and  unskilful  navi- 
gation, and  at  home,  at  Venice  or  Genoa,  the  goods  were 
unloaded  and  stored  for  further  exchange. 

From  the  Mediterranean  ports  overland  routes  led  up 
into  the  country  to  important  points  of  interior  trade. 
In  France  and  Germany  commerce  centred  about  the 
fairs,  which  were  held  at  fixed  seasons.  In  the  great 
fairs  wholesale  trade  was  carried  on,  the  merchants  from 
the  smaller  places  meeting  there  the  importers  who  had 
the  goods  of  the  East,  and  so  obtaining  their  supplies. 
In  the  fairs  of  the  smaller  places  retail  trading  was  done;^ 
but  a  very  large  part  of  the  retail  trade  of  the  interior 
was  carried  on  by  peddlers,  who  went  about  from  village 
to  village,  carrying  packs  themselves  or  sometimes  with 
horses.2 

After  a  time  the  ships  of  the  Mediterranean  ventured 
into  the  Atlantic,  and  direct  communication  by  water 
was  established  with  the  North.  Venice  sent  regularly 
each  year  a  fleet  to  touch  at  ports  in  England  and  the 
Netherlands,  and  the  latter  country  became  finally  the 
centre  of  nearly  ail  exchanges  between  the  North  and 
the  South,  so  that  it  should  fairly  be  reckoned  as  belong- 
ing in  the  middle  region  rather  than  in  the  northern. 

^  The  markets  at  present  held  at  brief  intervals  in  the  Congo  State  exhibit 
many  of  the  characteristic  features  of  the  medieval  markets  or  small  fairs. 

*  Cutts,  Scenes  and  Characters  of  the  Middle  Ages,  p.  515,  gives  the  con- 
tents of  a  foot-peddler's  pack  from  the  illustrations  of  a  manuscript.  It 
contained  gloves,  belts,  hoods,  a  hat,  mirrors,  a  dagger,  a  purse,  a  pair  of 
slippers,  hose,  a  musical  pipe,  etc. 


28o  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Bruges  was  the  chief  place  for  this  traffic,  and  it  came 
to  be  filled  with  the  warehouses  of  the  different  nations 
where  their  goods  were  stored  for  exchange. 

The  North  was  the  great  source  of  food  supplies  and 
of  raw  materials  for  the  increasing  manufactures  of  the 
middle  region — grain,  wool,  hides,  tallow,  salt  meat  and 
fish,  flax,  hemp,  timber,  furs,  and  tin  and  other  metals. 
The  North  developed,  from  the  thirteenth  century  on,  a 
very  extensive  and  diversified  commerce  of  its  own,  with 
a  more  compact  organization  through  the  Hanseatic 
League  than  Italian  commerce  had,  and  reaching  into 
Russia  and  by  degrees  becoming  bold  enough  to  send  its 
ships  into  the  Mediterranean.  Before  the  end  of  the 
middle  ages  there  was  also  considerable  manufacturing  in 
some  countries  of  the  North. 

Notwithstanding  the  great  development  of  commerce 
and  manufactures,  and  the  multiplication  of  articles  of 
use  and  luxury  which  followed,  the  lives  of  most  men 
still  continued  to  possess  few  comforts  to  the  end  of  the 
middle  ages.  From  the  first  century  of  the  crusades 
many  articles  which  we  now  consider  among  the  neces- 
sities of  life,  chimneys,  windows  of  glass,  bedroom  and 
table  furniture,  carpets,  clocks,  artificial  lights,  and  other 
things  of  the  sort  began  to  make  their  appearance  in  the 
houses  of  the  rich,  commonly  first  in  the  cities,  and  were 
slowly  adopted  by  the  country  nobles.  The  poorer  peo- 
ple of  the  country  remained  in  general  without  them,  and 
with  the  insufficient  diet  of  all  classes,  consisting  chiefly 
of  pork  or  salt  meats,  and  the  coarse  grains,  with  very 
few  vegetables,  and  the  general  uncleanliness  of  person 
and  of  surroundings,  it  is  not  strange  that  the  average 
length  of  life  was  short  and  that  frequent  plagues  carried 
off  large  numbers  of  all  ranks. 

By  the  fifteenth  century  commerce  had  lost  much  of 
its  earlier  simplicity.  It  had  become  greatly  diversified, 
and  had  taken  on  many  of  its  more  modern  features. 


THE   GROWTH   OF   COMMERCE   AND   ITS   RESULTS      281 

With  this  transformation  of  its  character  some  of  the 
problems  of  international  exchange  began  to  arise  before 
the  mind  of  the  time,  now  capable  of  taking  wider  views 
than  once,  and  men  began  to  grope,  at  least  in  a  half- 
conscious  way,  for  the  solution  of  questions  which  we  do 
not  seem  to  have  settled,  at  least  to  the  satisfaction  of 
all,  even  yet — the  relation  of  the  supply  of  gold  and  sil- 
ver to  the  national  wealth,  and  the  theory  that  national 
wealth  may  be  increased  and  commerce  developed  by 
legislative  restrictions  of  one  sort  or  another  upon  the 
commerce  of  other  people.^ 

It  can  hardly  be  supposed  that  the  theories  of  inter- 
national trade,  which  began  to  take  shape  at  this  time, 
were  permanent  contributions  to  civilization,  but  cer- 
tainly they  have  profoundly  affected  its  course  ever  since. 
Recent  times  have  not  been  more  intensely  interested  in 
any  subject  than  in  the  question  whether  legislation  should 
continue  to  be  controlled  by  them  or  not.  These  theories 
were  formed  at  a  time  when  the  facts  upon  which  they 
were  supposed  to  be  based  were  very  imperfectly  under- 
stood. Experience  in  general  commerce  was  only  just 
beginning,  and  any  real  knowledge  of  the  laws  which 
operate  in  it,  or  even  of  its  primary  facts,  was  entirely 
impossible.  These  ideas  were  pure  theories,  almost  as 
completely  so  as  the  speculations  of  any  closet  philos- 
opher who  ever  lived.  Probably  there  is  not  to  be  found 
in  any  other  department  of  civilization  an  attempt  to 
carry  out  pure  theories  in  practice  on  such  a  scale  as  this. 
But  these  ideas  had  an  apparent  and  temporary  basis  of 
fact  in  the  existence  of  a  narrow  but  extremely  profitable 
trade,  so  situated  that  it  could  be  artificially  controlled — ■ 

^  The  legislation  of  a  distinctly  protective  character,  of  which  ours  is  the 
direct  descendant,  began  in  the  fourteenth  century,  though  there  are  un- 
connected cases  of  the  same  sort  of  legislation  much  earlier.  The  theories 
upon  which  the  mercantile  system  was  based  began  to  be  put  into  definite 
shape  in  the  sixteenth  century.  See  Lalor's  translation  of  Roscher's  Polit' 
ical  Economy,  vol.  II,  App.  II  and  III,  especially  pp.  441  ff. 


282  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

one,  in  other  words,  which  could  be  made  to  operate  for 
a  time  like  the  exclusive  possession  of  a  gold  mine — and 
there  was  no  experience  at  hand  to  show  that  this  condi- 
tion of  things  was  temporary  and  exceptional.  These 
theories  had  further  an  extremely  plausible  foundation 
in  the  apparent  seli-interest  of  the  moment,  and  they 
obtained  a  hold  upon  the  popular  mind  which  the  better 
informed  have  found  it  extremely  hard  to  loosen.' 

For  our  purpose  these  forming  theories  are  far  less 
important  in  themselves  than  as  signs  of  the  wider  views 
and  more  comprehensive  grasp  of  mind  which  they  cer- 
tainly indicate  and  which  was  now  possible,  made  pos- 
sible in  large  part  by  the  extension  of  commerce  itself. 

These  expanding  ideas  are  revealed  still  more  clearly 
in  the  possibihty  which  dawned  upon  the  minds  of  many 
men  in  the  fifteenth  century  of  far  wider  extensions  of 
commerce  than  any  which  lay  along  the  old  lines — the 
first  faint  traces  of  the  idea  of  a  world  commerce,  and 
even  of  a  conception  of  the  world  itself  in  anything  like 
its  actual  reality.  It  was  only  the  first  beginning  of  these 
ideas,  but  they  were  held  strongly  enough  for  men  to 
take  the  risk  of  acting  upon  them,  and  the  discoveries 
of  the  last  years  of  the  century  resulted,  which  not  merely 
opened  new  worlds  to  commerce  but  broadened  immensely 
all  horizons. 

The  impulse  to  exploration  and  the  daring  spirit  and 
pluck  of  the  explorer  had  come  with  the  first  expansion 
of  commerce,  and  as  early  as  the  thirteenth  century  the 
then  "dark  continent"  of  Asia  had  been  traversed  by 
many  Europeans.     The  immediately  active  cause,  how- 

'  The  difficulty  in  the  case  is  hardly  more,  however,  than  that  which 
every  science  finds  in  getting  its  own  carefully  formed  inductions  accepted 
in  the  place  of  the  pure  theories  with  which  the  popular  mind  explains  all 
partially  understood  facts.  That  the  theories  in  this  case  are  apparently 
closely  bound  up  with  selfish  interests  makes  the  process  a  more  exciting 
one,  and  gives  the  adversary,  perhaps,  an  unusual  advantage,  but  it  can- 
not make  the  result  different  in  the  end. 


THE   GROWTH   OF   COMMERCE   AND   ITS   RESULTS      283 

ever,  of  the  oceanic  discoveries  of  the  fifteenth  century- 
was  the  coming  up  of  new  nations  eager  to  take  part  in 
the  extremely  profitable  commerce  in  Eastern  goods,  at 
the  moment  when  the  Turkish  conquests  in  the  north- 
ern and  eastern  parts  of  the  Mediterranean  were  nar- 
rowing down  the  possibilities  of  that  commerce  as  it  had 
existed,  and  the  footing  of  the  Venetians  in  Egypt  made 
competition  with  them  very  difiicult.  'fhe  Portuguese 
were  the  first  of  these  new  nations  to  cherish  this  com- 
mercial ambition,  and  they  turned  their  attention  to  find- 
ing a  way  to  India  around  Africa.  In  the  first  half  of 
the  fifteenth  century  Prince  Henry  of  Portugal  nobly 
devoted  his  life  to  the  encouragement  of  these  explora- 
tions, because,  as  he  thought,  they  fell  naturally  within 
the  duty  of  princes,  since  they  afforded  no  good  hope  of 
profit  to  tempt  the  merchant. 

It  required  no  little  daring  to  sail  into  unknown  seas 
in  an  age  when  men  fully  believed  that  they  might  meet 
with  the  adventures  of  Sindbad  the  Sailor,  and  worse 
things  also,  and  progress  was  necessarily  slow.  One  ex- 
pedition advanced  along  the  coast  as  far  as  it  dared,  and 
when  it  returned  in  safety  the  next  one  ventured  a  little 
farther.  In  1434  they  passed  Cape  Bojador;  in  1441, 
Cape  Branco;  in  1445,  Cape  Verde;  in  1462,  Cape  Sierra 
Leone;  in  147 1  they  reached  the  Gold  Coast;  the  equator 
was"  crossed  in  1484,  or  possibly  a  little  earlier;  in  i486 
Bartholomew  Diaz  turned  the  Southern  Cape,  henceforth 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope;  and  finally,  in  1498,  Vasco  da 
Gama  reached  India.  This  first  success  the  king  of 
Portugal  immediately  followed  up  by  sending  fleets  espe- 
cially fitted  out  for  trading,  and  though  they  were  bitterly 
opposed  in  India  by  the  Arabs  of  Egypt,  whose  monopoly 
was  threatened,  they  returned  with  loads  of  spices. 

The  revolution  wrought  by  the  opening  of  this  new 
route  was  tremendous.  Venice,  though  in  a  favored  posi- 
tion, had  been  compelled  to  buy  her  goods  in  Egypt  at 


284  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

a  great  disadvantage,  as  the  Arabs  had  a  practical  mo- 
nopoly. Heavy  tolls  and  dues  were  added  to  the  original 
cost,  and  the  Portuguese  were  able  to  buy  in  India  at 
only  a  fraction  of  the  cost  to  the  Venetians  in  Egypt. 
Venice  was  thrown  into  a  panic.  Contemporary  evi- 
dence is  said  to  show  that  when  the  news  first  came 
that  spices  had  reached  Portugal  direct  from  India,  the 
price  of  such  goods  fell  more  than  fifty  per  cent  in  Venice.^ 
For  the  Venetians  it  was  certainly  a  question  of  life 
and  death.  Their  whole  commercial  existence  depended 
upon  the  result.  They  urged  the  Arabs  of  Egypt  most 
earnestly  to  oppose  the  Portuguese  in  India  in  every  way 
possible;  they  discussed  for  a  moment  the  opening  of  a 
Suez  canal,  and  even  the  project  of  securing  an  overland 
route  around  the  Turkish  dominions  in  alliance  with  the 
Russians.  But  it  was  all  in  vain.  The  world's  com- 
merce had  outgrown  the  Mediterranean.  Six  years  be- 
fore Vasco  da  Gama's  success  Columbus  had  reached 
America,  and  the  world  passed  at  once  out  of  the  middle 
ages. 

Commerce  had  hardly  more  than  begun  its  new  activ- 
ity before  its  influence  began  to  be  felt  far  outside  its 
own  proper  field.  It  is  entirely  impossible  to  indicate, 
in  anything  approaching  a  chronological  order,  the  vari- 
ous ways  in  which  this  influence  was  directly  exerted. 
Even  an  attempt  to  state  them  in  something  hke  a  logical 
sequence  can  be  of  value  only  as  serving  to  indicate  for 
examination  the  points  of  contact  between  this  increasing 
commerce  and  other  fines  of  advance  during  the  same  time. 

1  The  trade  continued,  however,  extremely  profitable.  The  Portuguese 
are  said  to  have  sold  their  spices  at  the  time  of  their  supremacy  at  a  profit 
of  at  least  six  hundred  per  cent.  At  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury the  profits  of  a  successful  voyage  often  reached  two  hundred  per  cent. 
These  high  profits,  however,  had  to  make  good  many  losses.  The  average 
annual  dividend,  declared  by  the  Dutch  East  India  Company,  from  1605 
to  1720,  was  22j^  per  cent  on  a  capital  stock  partly  "water." 


THE   GROWTH   OF   COMMERCE   AND   ITS   RESULTS      285 

With  the  growth  of  commerce  cities  began  to  arise. 
Italy  and  Gaul  had  numerous  great  cities  in  Roman  times, 
and  most  of  these  continued  after  the  invasion  unde- 
stroyed,  but  with  their  relative  importance  diminished, 
and  in  many  cases  certainly  with  their  institutions  modi- 
fied. Roman  Germany  had  a  few  cities,  and  of  these  at 
least  Cologne  retained  a  noticeable  civic  and  commercial 
life  through  the  period  before  the  crusades.  The  interior 
and  north  of  Germany  had  no  cities  in  the  Roman  times, 
and  only  slight  beginnings  of  them  before  the  eleventh 
century. 

With  the  revival  of  commerce  these  old  cities  wakened 
to  a  new  activity  and  grew  rapidly  in  size  and  wealth. '^ 
New  cities  sprang  up  where  none  had  existed  before,  per- 
haps about  a  fortified  post  or  near  a  monastery  where  a 
local  market  or  fair  began  to  be  held.  The  privileges 
granted  to  the  market  attracted  merchants  to  settle  there 
and  gradually  widened  into  considerable  rights  of  self- 
government  and  a  local  law,  and,  often  at  least,  as  the 
city  formed  about  the  market  and  was  enabled  by  cir- 
cumstances to  take  its  place  as  an  independent  member 
of  the  national  community,  the  original  market  rights 
gradually  developed  into  the  city  constitution. 

The  natural  tendency  on  the  part  of  the  city  to  strive 
for  local  independence  and  self-government  was  greatly 

^  The  long-disputed  question  as  to  the  continuance  of  Roman  municipal 
institutions  across  the  dark  ages  is  one  which  concerns  the  special  institu- 
tional history  of  mun  ipal  government  rather  than  the  history  of  the  rise 
of  cities  in  general.  The  causes  of  the  general  movement  are  those  indi- 
cated above,  whatever  may  be  true  as  to  the  origin  of  special  features  in 
the  municipal  constitution.  It  seems  pretty  clearly  proved  that  in  Germany 
a  majority  of  the  cities  reached  their  rights  of  self-government  by  a  gradual 
enlargement  of  the  market  privileges  which  were  granted  them  at  the  be- 
ginning of  their  history.  This  fact  does  not  preclude,  however,  the  influ- 
ence of  Roman  institutions  elsewhere,  and  it  is  highly  probable  that  such 
an  influence  was  felt  in  individual  cases  at  least.  While  the  general  causes 
and  general  features  of  the  moment  are  similar  in  all  the  states,  it  would  be 
absurd  to  assume  a  uniformity  in  details  which  exists  nowhere  else  in  the 
middle  ages. 


286  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

aided  by  the  fact  that  at  the  time  when  the  movement 
began  the  feudal  system  was  at  its  height  as  the  prevail- 
ing form  of  political  organization  throughout  Europe. 
It  was  itself  the  realization,  as  far  as  possible,  of  the  idea 
of  local  independence,  and  though  the  feudal  lord  on 
whose  territory  the  city  had  grown  up  might  struggle  to 
maintain  his  control  over  it,  the  logic  of  the  whole  situa- 
tion was  on  the  side  of  the  city.  The  example  which  the 
lord  had  set  in  his  effort  to  escape  from  his  dependence 
upon  his  suzerain  was  a  very  plain  one  to  follow,  and  the 
feudal  system  furnished  forms  of  easy  application  which 
secured  a  practical  independence.^ 

This  was  especially  true  of  France,  and  though  the  cit- 
ies of  Italy  exhibit  more  fully  some  other  results  of  the 
movement  which  are  extremely  important  in  the  history 
of  civilization,  the  French  cities  reveal  more  clearly  than 
those  of  any  other  country  the  poHtical  tendencies  in  the 
general  government  of  the  state,  which  the  rise  of  the  cit- 
ies everywhere  favored,  but  which  were  more  completely 
realized  in  the  kingdom  of  France  than  in  any  other  of 
the  large  states  of  Europe. 

In  France,  though  opposed  in  spirit  to  the  feudal  sys- 
tem, the  movement  follows  distinctly  feudal  forms,  and 
the  tendency  's  always  towards  the  formation  of  "com- 
munes." By  no  means  all  the  cities  of  France  succeeded 
in  reaching  this  result,  and  in  organizing  actual  com- 
munes, probably  only  a  small  proportion  of  them  did, 
but  the  tendency  is  in  that  directior,  3nd  those  that 
failed  stopped  at  some  intermediate  point  in  the  process. 

The  commune  is,  strictly  speaking,  a  corporation  re- 
garded as  a  feudal  person,  and,  as  such,  having  the  obli- 
gations and  the  rights  of  a  vassal  in  respect  to  its  lord 

'  An  interesting  case  is  the  little  republic  of  Andorra,  where  feudal  forms 
allowed  the  establishment  of  a  local  independence  which  has  been  preserved 
into  our  own  times.  See  the  article  by  Professor  Bernard  Moses,  in  the 
Yale  Review,  vol.  II  (1893),  pp.  28-53. 


THE    GROWTH    OF    COMMERCE   AND    ITS   RESULTS      287 

and  able  to  become  a  suzerain  in  its  turn.  The  act  of 
forming  a  commune  within  the  limits  of  a  feudal  terri- 
tory was  an  act  of  subinfeudation— the  formation  of  a 
subfief  where  none  had  existed  until  then.  Before  the  for- 
mation of  the  commune  the  town  was  a  group  of  persons, 
brought  together  in  ordinary  cases  from  a  great  variety 
of  sources,  some  of  them  were  full  freemen,  or  even  small 
nobles,  of  the  country  or  neighborhood,  some  were  for- 
eigners to  the  country  or  to  the  fief  who  had  settled  in 
the  place  for  purposes  of  trade,  and  so  were  subject  to 
various  feudal  dues  to  the  lord,  some  of  them  were  serfs 
of  varying  degrees  of  right  with  respect  to  the  lord,  and 
therefore  subject  to  special  exactions  for  his  benefit.  If 
regarded  as  a  whole  in  this  stage  of  its  history,  the  town 
was  considered  a  serf  and  was  so  treated  in  law.  By  the 
grant  of  a  commune  this  group  of  persons  was  transformed 
into  a  single  person  and  raised  to  the  position  of  a  vassal, 
subject  no  longer  to  the  varying  and  indefinite  rights  of 
the  lord  over  serf  and  foreigner  as  individuals,  but  only 
to  the  limited  obligations  specified  in  the  contract  of  the 
fief  between  the  lord  and  the  commune.  This  contract 
was  under  the  ordinary  feudal  sanctions.  The  officers  of 
the  commune  paid  homage  and  swore  the  vassal's  oath 
to  the  lord,  and  he,  in  turn,  swore  to  observe  his  obliga- 
tions towards  them. 

The  special  obligations  which  the  commune  entered 
into  towards  the  lord  differed  in  different  cases  like  those 
of  other  vassals,  but  within  the  limits  established  by  these 
obligations  in  the  given  case  the  commune  obtained  the 
right  to  regulate  its  own  affairs  as  every  vassal  did.  This 
meant,  of  course,  for  the  city  the  right  of  local  self-gov- 
ernment, though  the  growth  of  the  general  government 
in  France  did  not  allow  the  result  which  was  reached  in 
Italy  and  Germany,  the  establishment  of  a  virtually  in- 
dependent city  state. 

Besides  the  commune  proper,  there  was  in  France  a 


288  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

multitude  of  cities  and  towns  which  never  became  full 
communes,  but  which  obtained  by  definite  contracts  more 
or  less  extensive  rights  of  self-government  and  of  free- 
dom from  exactions.  These  were  the  villes  de  bourgeoisie, 
or  chartered  towns.  The  number  of  these  towns  was 
much  greater  than  that  of  the  real  communes,  and  their 
influence  on  the  general  results  which  followed  from  this 
movement  was  precisely  the  same.  The  difference  was 
not  one  of  principle  or  of  character,  except  in  the  strictly 
legal  sense,  but  one  which  concerned  the  completeness  of 
the  local  rights  secured. 

It  is  easy  from  what  has  been  said  to  understand  the 
attitude  of  the  local  baron  towards  the  commune.  To 
grant  the  right  to  form  such  an  organization  was  to  cut 
off  so  much  of  his  fief  from  his  own  immediate  control. 
It  was  to  diminish  his  rights  of  exaction  and  to  reduce 
his  power.  Opposition  was  natural.  In  very  many  cases 
the  commune  succeeded  in  establishing  itself  only  after 
a  long  and  bitter  conflict,  and  as  the  result  of  a  victory 
which  forced  the  lord  to  yield. 

This  was  particularly  true  of  the  attitude  of  the  eccle- 
siastical nobles  towards  the  town.  The  seat  of  every 
bishop  was  in  an  important  city.  The  larger  abbeys  also 
were,  as  a  rule,  in  the  towns,  and  so  it  happened  that 
the  towns  which  began  to  strive  for  local  independence 
were  more  likely  to  be  in  ecclesiastical  than  in  lay  fiefs. 
The  larger  portion  of  the  long-continued  and  desperate 
struggle  between  the  rising  cities  and  the  older  power 
was  in  fiefs  held  by  the  church. 

Among  the  lay  nobility  it  was  more  likely  to  be  the 
small  noble,  the  lord  of  the  locality,  who  opposed  the  city 
than  the  great  lord  whose  domain  included  a  province. 
The  small  noble  saw  the  town  growing  up  in  his  little  ter- 
ritory, perhaps  out  of  nothing  or  next  to  nothing,  and 
menacing  his  dominion  with  a  serious  danger,  possibly 
even  threatening  to  annex  it  entirely,  and  to  crowd  him 


THE   GROWTH   OF   C0M:.r7.ECE   AND   ITS   RESULTS      289 

CO  the  wall.  The  inferior  nobility  were  in  many  cases 
contending  for  existence,  and  sometimes  in  France,  as 
happened  so  generally  in  Italy,  they  were  absorbed  into 
the  town;  in  some  cases  they  seem  to  have  gone  into  the 
commune  voluntarily  and  with  good-will. 

The  great  nobles  whose  territories  were  principalities 
followed  no  common  policy.  If  the  count  or  the  duke 
was  strong,  and  his  government  a  really  centralized  one, 
as  was  the  case  in  some  instances,  he  seems  to  have  fa- 
vored the  growth  of  the  towns  with  chartered  rights  but 
not  of  communes,  keeping  the  real  control  in  his  own 
hands.  If  his  power  was  weak  and  divided,  usurped  by 
vassals  whom  he  could  not  hold  to  obedience,  he  favored 
the  development  even  of  the  commune  as  a  means  of 
weakening  them.  In  some  cases,  also,  the  great  lords 
seem  as  bitterly  opposed  to  the  cities  as  the  great  officers 
of  the  church. 

The  wavering  policy  of  the  French  kings  towards  the 
movement,  which  is  not  in  reality  so  inconsistent  as  it 
appears  at  first,  is  to  be  explained  in  the  same  way  by 
their  relation  to  their  vassals.  The  early  Capetians  no 
doubt  perceived  the  advantage  which  the  independence 
of  the  towns  would  give  them  in  weakening  the  power 
of  the  feudal  barons,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  grant  their 
aid  to  the  efforts  of  the  cities  whenever  they  were  able 
to  do  so.  They  early  labored  to  establish  the  principle 
that  the  commune,  once  formed,  belonged  immediately 
to  the  king,  and  was  in  an  especial  degree  under  his  pro- 
tection. But  the  early  Capetians  were  in  a  peculiar  posi- 
tion. From  the  weakness  of  their  general  power  they 
wxre  especially  dependent  upon  the  support  of  the  church, 
and  this  was  in  truth  one  of  the  chief  sources  of  their 
strength.  In  many  cases  they  could  not  break  with  these 
allies  nor  afford  to  support  their  enemies,  though  they 
might  on  other  grounds  have  been  glad  to  do  so.  We 
have   them,   therefore,   following   a  policy   which   seems 


290  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

contradictory,  aiding  the  communes  where  they  could  do 
so  safely,  and  opposing  them  elsewhere,  because  in  the 
latter  cases  there  was  danger  of  losing  more  than  might 
be  gained. 

As  the  monarchy  grew  stronger  and  more  independent 
of  the  support  of  the  church,  we  find  the  kings  adopting 
a  more  consistent  policy,  and  at  the  beginning  of  the 
thirteenth  century  distinctly  favoring  the  cities.  As  they 
grew  stronger  still,  and  something  like  a  real  centraliza- 
tion began  to  be  possible,  then  the  commune  with  its 
rights  of  independent  local  government  stood,  as  the 
king  looked  at  it,  much  in  the  same  attitude  towards 
the  general  government  as  the  independent  feudal  baron. 
It  represented  a  bit  of  the  territory  of  the  state  in  which 
the  central  power  did  not  have  free  sway.  Consequently, 
we  have  later  kings  endeavoring  to  break  down  the  priv- 
ileges of  the  communes  and  to  gain  a  direct  control  by 
introducing  into  them  royal  executive  and  judicial  offi- 
cers. This  process  can  be  clearly  traced  before  the  close 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  it  is  very  speedily  con- 
cluded, partly  because  of  the  isolated  position  of  the 
communes  and  their  inability  to  combine  as  the  barons 
did,  and  partly  because  they  had  always  recognized  a 
more  direct  right  of  government  on  the  part  of  the  king, 
and  had  never  become  independent,  as  had  the  cities  of 
Italy  and  Germany. 

Towards  the  towns  which  were  not  communes,  the 
villes  de  bourgeoisie,  the  policy  of  the  kings  was  more 
consistent  and  more  steadily  favorable.  These  towns  had 
not  gained  a  complete  self-government  and  were  not 
closed  against  the  officers  of  the  king,  but  their  forma- 
tion was  as  great  an  aid  to  him  as  that  of  the  communes 
in  his  efforts  to  build  up  the  power  of  the  central  govern- 
ment by  weakening  the  baronial  power. 

But  in  many  other  ways,  and  really  in  more  decisive 
wajs  than  by  dividing  their  fiefs  and  weakening  their 


THE   GROWTH    OF   COMMERCE   AND   ITS   RESULTS      29 1 

local  power,  the  growth  of  the  cities,  or  the  increase  of 
commerce  as  the  underlying  cause,  rendered  it  no  longer 
possible  for  the  feudal  lords  to  maintain  the  position 
which  they  had  held  in  the  state. 

One  of  the  direct  results  of  the  growth  of  commerce 
which  had  this  effect  was  that  a  much  larger  amount  of 
money  was  brought  into  circulation,  and  its  use  was  made 
more  general.  In  the  thirteenth  century  not  only  did  gold 
begin  to  be  coined,  but  also  coins  of  much  smaller  de- 
nominations than  formerly,  a  sure  sign  that  commercial 
transactions  were  becoming  more  frequent  among  the 
lower  classes,  and  that  sales  were  beginning  to  take 
the  place  of  barter.  From  the  cities  and  smaller  towns 
the  m.oney  would  work  its  way  into  the  country  and 
gradually  come  into  more  common  use  among  the  la- 
borers on  the  farms. 

This  increased  circulation  of  money  struck  at  the  very 
root  of  feudalism.  The  economic  foundation  of  the  feu- 
dal system  was  the  scarcity  of  money  and  the  impossi- 
bility of  using  it  freely  for  purchases  to  supply  daily  needs 
which  must  be  supplied  in  any  state  of  society.  It  was 
scarcely  possible,  in  such  conditions,  for  rent  and  income 
to  take  any  other  form  than  that  of  personal  services  and 
payments  of  produce.  Feudalism  as  a  means  of  carry- 
ing on  government  had  its  foundation  also  in  the  polit- 
ical conditions  of  the  time,  as  we  have  seen,  but  it  was 
hardly  possible  for  these  conditions  to  change,  to  such  an 
extent  as  to  lead  to  the  overthrow  of  the  system,  so  long 
as  it  was  difficult  in  all  poHtical  relations  as  well  as  in 
agriculture,  which  was  the  main  source  of  income,  to 
substitute  some  other  kind  of  payment  for  payments  in 
services  and  in  kind. 

As  soon  as  money  came  into  increased  general  circula- 
tion the  situation  was  changed.  It  became  possible  to 
substitute  definite  and  specific  contracts  for  the  arrange- 
ments, always  more  or  less  vague,  of  the  manorial  cus- 


292  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

toms,  and  the  increased  usefulness  of  money  was  a  con- 
vincing argument  with  the  lord,  in  very  many  cases  at 
least,  that  the  money  paid  in  commutation  of  services 
would  be  of  greater  value  to  him  than  the  services  them- 
selves, uncertain  and  irregular,  and  performed  with  great 
reluctance  as  they  usually  were.  But  the  introduction  of 
money  payments  in  this  way,  in  the  place  of  customary 
services,  while  it  left  the  feudal  lord  in  title  and  rank 
and  social  position  what  he  had  been,  deprived  him  of 
his  immediate  personal  hold  upon  his  subjects  and  un- 
dermined his  political  power.  This  was  still  more  the 
case  as  money  took  the  place  of  services  on  the  political 
side,  as  in  the  payment  of  scutage  instead  of  military 
service,  which  began  to  be  important  in  England  soon 
after  the  second  crusade. 

It  must  not  be  understood  that  this  was  the  sole  or 
even  the  chief  cause  of  the  fall  of  feudalism.  A  hundred 
causes  worked  together  to  that  end.  Nor  must  it  be  sup- 
posed that  all  feudal  or  manorial  services  disappeared. 
It  was  only  here  and  there  in  the  most  favored  localities 
that  this  was  the  case,  and  in  some  of  these  even,  some 
such  services  have  remained,  in  form  at  least,  to  the 
present  time,  while  in  some  parts  of  Europe  feudaHsm 
can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  declined  at  the  end  of  the 
middle  ages.  Nearly  everywhere  it  had,  however,  and 
for  peasant  and  burgher,  in  their  rise  to  independence, 
scarcely  anything  was  so  helpful  as  the  increased  circu- 
lation of  money. 

This  more  general  use  of  money  had  also  most  impor- 
tant consequences  in  another  direction.  It  made  taxa- 
tion possible.  The  extension  of  commerce  had  led  to 
large  accumulations  of  wealth  in  the  cities.  Here  was 
a  new  resource  for  the  state  which,  if  it  could  be  made 
to  contribute  to  public  purposes  in  some  systematic  and 
reliable  way,  would  relieve  the  central  power  of  its  de- 
pendence upon  the  feudal  system,  and  give  it  a  new  and 


THE    GROWTH    OF    COMMERCE   AND   ITS    RESULTS      293 

more  solid  foundation  on  which  to  build,  an  indispensable 
foundation  indeed.  Arrangements  long  in  use  provided 
an  easy  way  of  introducing  the  cities  directly  into  the 
state  machinery,  and  of  obtaining  from  them  their  con- 
sent to  a  levy  of  taxes  of  which  they  were  to  pay  the 
larger  portion.  The  cities  showed  evident  signs  of  a  re- 
luctance to  part  with  their  wealth,  as  was  natural,  but 
there  were,  on  the  other  hand,  reasons  of  their  own  which 
prevailed  with  them  to  consent. 

The  accumulation  of  capital  in  the  towns  and  the  ex- 
tension of  commerce  throughout  the  country  created  an 
intense  demand  for  order  and  security.  Nothing  makes 
so  strong  a  demand  for  these  things,  or  tends  to  secure 
them  so  perfectly,  as  the  possession  of  wealth.  The  feu- 
dal confusion,  the  private  wars,  the  robber  baron,  so 
prominent  a  feature  of  declining  feudalism,  were  the 
deadly  foes  of  commerce,  as  the  merchant  was  of  them. 
His  protection  was  to  be  found  in  the  establishment  of  a 
public  power  able  to  suppress  these  evils  and  to  main- 
tain order  throughout  the  state,  and  wherever  such  a 
public  power  was  forming  the  capitahst  class  of  the  day 
came  to  its  aid  with  all  its  resources.  No  doubt  it  was 
anxious  to  do  this  with  as  little  expense  to  itself  as  pos- 
sible, but  it  was  ready  to  sacrifice  its  wealth  unsparingly 
in  its  own  defence  when  directly  attacked,  and  it  did  not 
fail  to  see  the  advantage  it  would  gain  from  providing 
the  king  with  a  revenue  which  would  support  a  stand- 
ing army  and  a  national  system  of  courts  of  justice. 

Commerce  and  wealth  came  to  the  aid  of  the  forming 
national  government  not  merely  in  the  fact  that  they 
created  a  demand  for  established  order  but  also  by  a 
demand  for  uniformity.  Commerce  extended  from  com- 
mon centres  through  the  entire  state,  and  bound  it  to- 
gether in  a  united  system  with  lines  as  living  and  real 
as  those  of  the  church  organization.  The  interests  of  the 
merchant  were  alike  everywhere,  and  it  was  extremely 


294  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

important  for  him  to  know  what  he  had  to  expect  in 
every  locaHty.  The  arbitrary  exactions  of  the  uncon- 
trolled feudal  lord;  the  varying  tolls  and  dues  of  every 
little  fief;  a  hundred  systems  of  coinage  on  whose  purity 
and  honesty  no  dependence  could  be  placed;  worse  still, 
if  possible,  the  local  customary  law  differing  from  every 
other  in  points  perhaps  of  the  greatest  importance  to  the 
merchant  and  enforced  by  an  interested  local  court  from 
which  there  might  be  no  appeal — these  things  were,  in 
the  long  run,  more  serious  obstacles  in  the  way  of  com- 
merce than  private  wars  and  robber  barons.  The  whole 
influence  of  the  merchant  class  and  of  the  cities  was  to- 
wards doing  away  with  this  local  confusion  of  practice, 
and  towards  putting  in  the  place  of  it  a  national  control, 
national  coinage,  courts,  and  law. 

In  the  matter  of  a  national  law  the  influence  of  the 
cities  was  especially  strong.  It  was  in  this  respect  not 
merely  a  general  influence,  a  favoring  condition,  which 
the  cities  created.  In  the  cities  the  professional  lawyer 
made  his  appearance  and  the  study  of  the  Roman  law 
was  begun  and  actively  pursued.  This  was  possible  be- 
cause the  growth  of  the  cities  and  the  accumulation  of 
wealth  in  them  meant  leisure.  That  leisure  which  had 
been  possible  in  the  earlier  middle  ages  only  to  the  eccle- 
siastic became  possible  now  to  men  outside  the  church. 
They  could  devote  themselves  to  intellectual  pursuits 
with  a  certainty  of  support.  The  new  study  of  the 
Roman  law,  which  began  in  this  way,  and  which  the 
cities  strongly  favored,  as  a  general  and  highly  organized 
system  ready  made  for  their  purpose  in  place  of  the  feu- 
dal variety  and  confusion,  gave  congenial  employment  to 
this  new  class  and  gave  rise  to  the  professional  lawyer. 
He  was  a  layman  and  a  bourgeois,  but  he  was  a  man  of 
thoroughly  trained  intellect,  of  self-respect  and  pride  as 
great  as  the  noble's,  and  he  cherished  the  strongest  ideas, 
derived  from  the  system  of  law  in  which  he  had  been 


THE   GROWTH   OF   COMMERCE   AND   ITS   RESULTS      295 

trained,  of  the  supremacy  of  a  national  law,  and  of  the 
right  of  the  sovereign  to  exact  obedience  everywhere.  It 
followed  that,  in  his  efforts  to  recover  the  legislative  and 
judicial  power,  and  to  establish  a  uniform  law,  the  king 
had  not  merely  the  general  support  of  the  cities,  but  they 
furnished  him  also  with  a  ready-made  and  highly  per- 
fected legal  system  capable  of  being  immediately  applied, 
and  with  a  force  of  trained  men  earnestly  devoted  to  its 
establishment  and  enforcement. 

We  have  here  sketched  somewhat  briefly  the  influences 
which  commerce  everywhere  tended  to  exert,  and  the 
results  which  it  everywhere  tended  to  produce.  These 
are  to  be  found  reaching  their  logical  conclusion,  in  com- 
bination with  other  causes,  only  in  France,  and  there 
the  logical  result  involved  the  destruction  of  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  cities.  Other  states  of  Europe  show 
results  of  this  movement  which  are  peculiar  to  them- 
selves, and  some  of  them  exhibit  tendencies  which  just 
as  truly  belong  to  it,  but  which  do  not  appear  so  clearly 
in  French  history  because  there  the  political  result  was 
so  fully  worked  out  in  the  establishment  of  an  absolute 
central  government. 

In  Italy  the  existence  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire, 
together  with  the  policy  which  the  popes  adopted  in  de- 
fence of  their  political  independence,  prevented  the  for- 
mation of  any  native  national  government  while  the 
empire  furnished  the  pretence  of  one.  In  consequence 
of  this  the  cities,  when  they  became  strong,  found  them- 
selves depending  upon  a  shadowy  state  whose  sovereignty 
they  recognized  in  form,  but  which  was  not  at  hand  to 
exercise  a  real  and  direct  government.  As  a  result,  the 
cities  in  Italy  found  it  easy  to  become  little  independent 
states,  after  the  manner  of  the  feudal  principalities  in 
Germany.  Their  early  and  rapid  growth  enabled  them 
to  absorb  nearly  all  the  nobles  of  the  country,  and  they 


296  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

intrenched  themselves  so  strongly  that  when  the  Hohen- 
staufen  emperors  attempted  to  bring  them  under  a  di- 
rect control,  they  were  able,  in  combination,  as  we  have 
seen,  to  maintain  and  secure  their  independence. 

The  peculiarities  of  their  growth  had  made  them  as 
independent  of  one  another  as  they  were  of  the  state, 
and  except  when  brought  together  by  some  common 
danger,  each  pursued  its  own  interests  without  regard  to 
the  others.  It  often  happened  that  conflicting  interests 
led  to  the  fiercest  struggles  between  them,  ending  only 
with  the  ruin  of  one  of  the  rivals,  as  in  the  contest  be- 
tween Florence  and  Pisa,  or  between  Venice  and  Genoa. 
Many  of  them  w^ere  able  to  extend  their  sovereignty  over 
the  surrounding  territory  and  smaller  towns,  and  to  bring 
together  a  considerable  state  as  did  IVIilan.  In  nearly  all 
of  them,  towards  the  end  of  the  middle  ages,  corruption 
among  the  citizens  or  the  necessities  of  their  military 
defence  made  it  easy  for  unscrupulous  and  enterprising 
men  to  establish  tyrannies  and  to  destroy  their  repub- 
lican governments,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Medici  family 
in  Florence  or  the  Sforza  family  in  Milan. 

The  diversity  of  Hfe  in  these  Italian  cities,  the  multi- 
plicity of  their  interests,  their  rivalries  with  one  another, 
and  the  party  struggles  within  their  walls,  stimulated  a 
general  mental  activity  among  their  citizens,  especially 
in  the  case  of  the  large  leisure  class  which  their  great 
wealth  had  created.  And  so  in  the  cities  of  Italy,  earlier 
than  anywhere  else,  a  keen  and  cultivated  intellectual 
society  formed  itself,  which  was  characterized  by  many 
modern  traits,  and  which  prepared  the  way  for  the  re- 
vival of  learning. 

In  Germany  a  considerable  number  of  cities  in  fa- 
vored localities  reached  the  same  position  of  local  inde- 
pendence as  those  of  Italy,  and  for  the  same  reason — 
their  immediate  dependence  upon  a  nominal  national 
government  which  had  lost  all  power  to  interfere  in  the 


THE    GROWTH    OF    COMMERCE    AND    ITS    RESULTS      297 

management  of  local  affairs.  There  existed,  then,  in  Ger- 
many, as  in  Italy,  permanently  independent  little  city 
states  regulating  their  own  affairs  under  a  republican 
government.  Many  of  these  continued  independent  into 
modern  times,  and  three  of  them — Liibeck,  Hamburg, 
and  Bremen — -are  at  present  states  of  the  federal  empire 
of  Germany. 

Many  of  these  cities  were,  however,  in  the  end,  to 
undergo  the  same  fate  which  befell  the  French  cities, 
and  to  be  absorbed  into  some  neighboring  centralized 
state  founded  upon  a  feudal  territory.  But  these  states 
were  formed  in  Germany  only  at  a  relatively  late  date, 
some  of  the  most  extensive  of  them  not  until  after  the 
middle  ages,  and  there  was  no  one  of  them,  at  whatever 
time  formed,  large  enough  to  include  within  its  govern- 
ment the  circle  of  commercial  territory  in  which  the  cit- 
ies were  interested.  It  happened,  therefore,  in  Germany, 
that  the  cities  which  succeeded  in  preserving  their  inde- 
pendence were  thrown  upon  their  own  resources  for  pro- 
tection, and  were  obliged  themselves  to  repress  the  evils 
which  a  national  government  would  naturally  have  held 
in  check,  and  which  even  a  forming  central  power,  Hke 
that  of  France,  was  able  to  deal  with  in  a  constantly 
increasing  degree.  As  a  consequence  of  this  there  ap- 
pears in  Germany  a  political  result  of  the  commercial 
development  which  is  not  seen  in  the  same  form  else- 
where— the  city  leagues.  The  Italian  cities  united  to- 
gether in  the  Lombard  League,  in  their  struggle  against 
the  Hohenstaufen  emperors,  but  that  was  a  league  for 
mutual  defence  against  a  special  danger,  and  it  did  not 
have  the  permanence  nor  the  political  character  of  the 
German  leagues. 

The  greatest  of  these  leagues  was  the  Hanseatic,  formed 
during  the  thirteenth  century  and  reaching  its  height  in 
the  fourteenth.  Its  power  extended  over  the  whole  north 
of  Germany  and  into  all  the  countries  bordering  on  the 


298  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Baltic  and  North  Seas.  Almost  a  nation  itself  in  its  or- 
ganization and  resources,  it  dealt  with  states  on  equal 
terms  and  protected  its  commercial  rights  with  great 
fleets.  The  League  of  the  Rhine  Cities,  almost  as  power- 
ful, and  perhaps  even  of  earlier  formation,  was  an  equally 
effective  agent  in  keeping  the  peace  and  protecting  com- 
merce, within  the  range  of  its  influence.  So  efficient  an 
instrument  in  preser\-ing  order  did  the  league  prove  itself 
to  be  that  at  the  very  close  of  the  middle  ages  the  free 
cities  of  southern  Germany  entered  into  an  alliance  of 
the  sort  with  the  princes,  who  had  succeeded  in  forming 
states  in  that  part  of  the  country — the  so-called  Swa- 
bian  League — to  put  down  disorder,  caused  mostly  by 
the  despairing  and  desperate  efforts  of  the  small  nobles 
to  preserve  their  political  independence. 

In  England  the  city  never  played  so  important  a  part 
in  public  affairs  as  on  the  Continent,  and  the  reason  for 
this  fact  is  easy  to  be  found.  In  England,  though  the 
feudal  system  was  established  as  completely  as  on  the 
Continent,  as  a  matter  of  organization,  the  state  never 
split  into  fragments — the  law  was  always  national  law. 
The  central  government  was  always  strong  and  had  all 
parts  of  the  state  in  hand,  and  the  improvement  of  that 
government  was  an  orderly  and  natural  process  of  growth, 
in  which  all  parts  of  the  community  shared  alike,  no  one 
part  needed  to  be  uprooted  and  destroyed  by  the  others. 
The  existence  of  a  definite  machinery  of  free  local  self- 
government — the  township  or  the  hundred  organization 
— furnished  as  ready  a  means  by  which  the  city  could 
secure  control  of  its  own  affairs  as  the  forms  of  the  feu- 
dal system  gave  to  the  commune  in  France.  But  this 
very  fact  incorporated  it  completely  in  the  organization 
of  the  shire  or  the  state,  of  which  the  tovv^nship  or  the 
hundred  formed  a  regular  part,  and  prevented  the  En- 
glish city  from  establishing  a  perfect  independence  hke 
the  Italian  or  German  city,  or  even  from  coming  s<»  JAear 


THE    GROWTH   OF   COMMERCE   AND   ITS   RESULTS      299 

to  it  as  did  the  communes  of  France.  In  the  long  strug- 
gle for  English  liberty  the  boroughs  were  to  play  an  hon- 
orable part,  but  they  did  it,  not  as  independent  powers, 
but  as  corporate  elements  of  the  state. 

Translated  into  other  terms,  this  increase  of  commerce 
and  development  of  the  cities  becomes  the  rise  of  the 
Third  Estate  into  a  position  of  influence  and  power,  be- 
side the  other  two.  This  is  a  fact  of  the  utmost  impor-  \/ 
tance  in  the  general  history  of  civilization,  because  this"^ 
progress  once  begun,  though  it  was  to  be  here  and  there 
very  slow,  and  sometimes  even  ended,  to  all  appearance, 
in  reality  never  ceased,  and  our  own  time  is  character- 
ized by  its  complete  triumph  and  the  practical  absorption, 
both  economically  and  politically,  of  the  other  two  es- 
tates in  the  third. 

All  the  middle  ages  may  have  recognized  the  existence 
of  three  classes  in  the  population — a  working  class  be- 
sides the  clergy  and  the  nobles — but  politically  and  in  all 
practical  concerns  no  account  was  taken  of  this  third 
class  until  it  began  to  possess  wealth.  The  First  Estate, 
the  clergy,  with  the  Second  Estate,  the  nobles,  controlled 
everything,  and  no  one  outside  their  ranks  had  any  voice 
in  affairs. 

With  the  growth  of  commerce  this  condition  of  things 
began  to  be  changed.  Wealth  meant  power.  The  ready 
money  of  the  merchant  was  as  effective  a  weapon  as  the 
sword  of  the  nobles,  or  the  spiritual  arms  of  the  church. 
Very  speedily,  also,  the  men  of  the  cities  began  to  seize 
upon  one  of  the  weapons  which  up  to  this  time  had  been 
the  exclusive  possession  of  the  church,  and  one  of  the  main 
sources  of  its  power — knowledge  and  intellectual  training. 
With  these  two  weapons  in  its  hands,  wealth  and  knowl- 
edge, the  Third  Estate  forced  its  way  into  influence,  and 
compelled  the  other  two  to  recognize  it  as  a  partner  with 
themselves  in  the  management  of  public  concerns. 


300 


MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 


The  formation  of  the  Third  Estate  must  not  be  re- 
garded as  the  formation  of  the  "people"  in  the  modern 
sense  of  that  word.  This  distinction  is  very  important 
historically  and  one  that  should  be  made  clear  if  possible. 

According  to  our  modern  democratic  ideas  the  "peo- 
ple" includes  the  whole  body  of  inhabitants  in  the  coun- 
try. If  we  say,  "the  will  of  the  people  controls  the  state," 
we  mean  the  will  of  the  mass  of  the  population  without 
distinction  of  classes.  But  such  an  idea  would  have  been 
impossible  even  to  the  end  of  the  middle  ages.  It  would 
have  been  foreign  to  all  its  notions.  Even  within  the 
self-governing  cities  the  governments  were  not  demo- 
cratic, and  they  tended,  in  most  cases,  to  become  more 
and  more  aristocratic,  and  the  distinction  between  "patri- 
cians" and  common  people  was  as  clearly  drawn  as  out- 
side their  walls,  though  based  upon  different  grounds. 

The  rise  of  the  Third  Estate  did  not  mean  the  forma- 
tion of  the  "people."  It  was  the  first  step  towards  it, 
but,  in  the  middle  ages,  it  went  no  farther  than  to  bring 
up  beside  the  other  classes,  who  had  heretofore  controlled 
the  state,  and  who  continued  to  retain  their  distinct  ex- 
istence as  classes,  and  nearly  everywhere  kept  a  prepon- 
derance of  influence,  another  class,  clearly  marked  within 
itself  as  a  class  and  clearly  separated  from  them.  Beyond 
this  the  middle  ages  did  not  go,  except  in  Italy,  where 
something  almost  like  the  "people"  may  be  seen,  in  some 
of  the  cities,  though  in  England,  also,  one  very  decisive 
step  towards  modern  times  was  taken  in  the  association 
of  the  smaller  nobles  with  the  "commons."  The  govern- 
ment which  resulted  from  the  rise  of  the  Third  Estate 
was  a  government  of  classes  and  separate  interests,  with 
the  characteristic  weaknesses  of  such  a  government,  and 
unless  reinforced  from  other  sources  presented  no  serious 
obstacle  to  the  growth  of  absolutism. 

The  Third  Estate  was  itself  divided  into  two  well- 
marked  divisions — the  city  population  and  the  laboring 


THE    GROWTH    OF    COMMERCE    AND    ITS    RESULTS      30I 

class  of  the  country  districts.  This  distinction  was  so 
clearly  marked  that  in  some  countries  the  peasants  were 
reckoned  as  forming  a  Fourth  Estate.  The  agricultural 
laborers  of  Europe  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  gained 
political  rights  or  any  share  in  the  government  at  the 
close  of  the  middle  ages;  indeed,  with  insignificant  ex- 
ceptions, and  with  the  exception  of  some  of  the  American 
colonies,  it  was  reserved  for  the  nineteenth  century  to 
make  this  advance.  The  Third  Estate,  considered  as  hav- 
ing an  influence  on  public  affairs,  was  in  reality  only  the 
burgher  class.  This  class  was,  however,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  drawn  largely  from  the  country  population,  though 
the  nucleus  around  which  it  gathered  was  in  all  cases, 
except  in  the  new  towns,  the  city  population  which  had 
descended  from  earlier  times.  As  commerce  increased, 
means  of  employment  naturally  multiplied.  Manufac- 
tures developed;  new  lines  of  industry  and  of  mechanical 
work  were  opened.  An  easier  and  more  advantageous 
life  was  to  be  had  in  the  cities  than  in  the  country,  and 
a  current  set  constantly  into  them  of  the  more  enterpris- 
ing and  better  situated  peasants  to  take  advantage  of 
the  more  favorable  conditions  there,  and  to  reinforce  the 
Third  Estate.  The  cities  themselves  encouraged  this 
tendency,  as  sometimes  also  did  the  suzerain,  or  the  sov- 
ereign of  the  city,  by  the  grant  of  his  protection  to  im- 
migrants. The  drift  from  the  country  had  its  reflex  in- 
fluence also  upon  the  people  remaining  there,  by  securing 
them  better  treatment  or  even  special  privileges  from 
lords  anxious  to  retain  the  peasants  on  their  lands. 

In  the  case  of  the  laboring  classes  of  the  country  the 
end  of  the  Roman  Empire  and  the  beginning  of  the  mid- 
dle ages  had  seen  the  slave  transformed  into  the  serf. 
This  change  consisted  in  giving  certain  limited  rights  to 
a  class  which  had  before  possessed  no  rights  whatever. 
A  serf  is  a  slave  to  whom  a  few  but  not  all  the  rights 
of  a  freeman  have  been  granted.     He  has  taken  the  first 


302  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

step  towards  becoming  a  freeman.  That  he  is  chained 
to  the  soil  is  at  the  beginning  as  much  of  an  advantage 
as  it  is  later  a  disadvantage,  for  it  secures  him  a  home, 
a  family,  and  certain  limited  rights  of  property,  none  of 
which  can  be  taken  away  from  him.  It  was  perfectly 
natural  that  in  the  course  of  time,  as  the  general  condi- 
tions which  surrounded  the  serf  improved,  the  limitations 
upon  his  right  should  come  to  be  the  main  things  noticed, 
and  that  it  should  be  forgotten  how  very  little  those  limi- 
tations were  regarded  centuries  before  in  comparison  with 
the  rights  then  gained. 

The  change  to  serfdom  was  accomplished  in  the  later 
empire  by  economic  causes,  chiefly  by  the  difficulty  of 
getting  a  sufficient  number  of  agricultural  laborers.  The 
slavery  of  Christian  men  was  not  entirely  extinguished, 
however,  though  forbidden.  It  lingered  on  in  various 
ways  until  the  very  end  of  the  middle  ages. 

In  the  times  which  follow  the  German  conquests  there 
is  to  be  seen  a  mixture  of  phenomena.  Exactly  opposite 
things  seem  to  be  happening  at  diflferent  dates  or  in  dif- 
ferent places  at  the  same  date.  In  some  cases  freemen 
sink  down  towards  the  serf  class,  and  many  of  those  in 
the  higher  grades  of  serfdom  represent  earlier  free  la- 
borers. Sometimes,  on  the  contrary,  the  lower  classes 
may  be  seen  rising  towards  the  higher,  and  reinforcing 
from  this  source  the  same  upper  grades.  In  a  general 
view  of  the  whole  period  we  may  say  that  the  condition 
of  the  laborer  is,  in  most  particulars,  improving;  or  the 
fact  would  be,  perhaps,  more  accurately  stated  in  this 
way:  that  the  forms  of  land  tenure  and  the  general  eco- 
nomic conditions  of  the  middle  ages  made  it,  on  the  whole, 
easy  for  the  serf  who  was  somewhat  more  enterprising 
than  his  class,  or  who  found  himself  in  a  better  situation, 
to  improve  his  condition  and  to  rise  towards  the  rank  of 
a  freeman. 

This  fact  explains  the  great  variety  of  rights  possessed 


THE    GROWTH    OF    COMMERCE    AND    ITS    RESULTS      303 

by  the  agricultural  laborers  of  a  given  time  in  any  one 
of  the  countries  of  Europe,  and  as  well  the  great  variety 
of  legal  conditions  which  can  often  be  found  upon  a 
single  estate.  These  various  gradations  of  right  and  of 
tenure  represent  the  intermediate  steps  or  stages  through 
which  the  serf  is  passing  on  his  way  to  freedom.  On  the 
same  estate  there  may  be  some,  perhaps,  whose  condi- 
tion is  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  that  of  slaves, 
others  who  have  a  few  more  rights,  others  still  more,  and 
some  who  are  almost  indistinguishable  from  full  freemen. 

This  second  change  from  serf  to  free  laborer,  like  the 
earlier  one  from  slave  to  serf,  was  determined  by  economic 
causes,  often  by  the  same  one  indeed,  the  scarcity  of  la- 
borers and  the  consequent  willingness  of  the  landlord  to 
grant  better  conditions  of  tenure  in  order  to  gain  new 
laborers  or  to  keep  his  old  ones.  The  change  consisted 
almost  everywhere  in  the  transformation  of  vague  and 
indefinite  personal  services  into  clearly  expressed  and 
definitely  limited  services,  and  these  into  payments  of 
rent,  sometimes  in  produce  and  then  finally  in  many 
places  in  money.  When  a  fixed  money  paym^ent  took 
the  place  of  labor  services  the  serf  had  become  a  freeman.* 
It  is  characteristic  of  the  later  part  of  the  middle  ages 
that  these  various  forms  of  servile  tenure  coexist  on  the 
same  estate,  and  very  frequently  in  the  case  of  the  same 
man,. who  will  be  held  to  render  in  part  services  and  in 
part  rent  payments. 

In  the  more  favored  parts  of  Europe  this  process  of 
emancipation  was  completed  by  the  end  of  the  middle 
ages.  In  Italy  serfdom  had  disappeared  as  early,  prob- 
ably, as  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century.     In  England 

^  In  some  places,  notably  in  Italy,  there  were  large  numbers  of  emanci- 
pations by  charters,  which  gave  religious  reasons  for  the  act,  or  moral  con- 
siderations, drawn  often  from  the  Roman  law,  like  the  natural  equality  of 
all  men.  If  these  are  really  exceptions  to  the  operation  of  the  causes  men- 
tioned in  the  text  they  are  not  numerous  enough  to  affect  the  movement 
as  a  whole. 


304  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  same  result  was  reached,  with  some  exceptions,  by 
the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth.  Of  parts  of  France  and 
of  Germany  the  same  thing  is  true.  In  some  of  the  less 
favorably  situated  parts  of  the  Continent  serfdom  or  some 
features  of  serfdom  lived  on  until  the  revolutionary  age 
which  opened  the  nineteenth  century. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE   FORMATION    OF   FRANCE 

Wherever  the  influences  which  were  described  in  the 
last  chapter  had  an  opportunity  to  work  under  favorable 
political  conditions,  only  one  result  was  possible — a  na- 
tional consciousness  began  to  arise  and  the  national  gov- 
ernment began  to  be  more  directly  an  expression  of  that 
consciousness:  governments,  in  other  words,  began  to 
exist  having  reality  as  well  as  a  name  to  be.  The  im- 
provement of  the  intellectual  conditions,  which  will  be 
the  subject  of  Chapter  XV,  rendered  also  essential  service 
in  the  same  direction,  in  .the  growth  of  general  intelli- 
gence and  the  creation  of  a  wider  community  of  ideas. 
But  the  results  which  followed  an  increasing  commerce 
had  a  more  direct  and  immediate  influence  upon  the  for- 
mation of  state  governments  than  had  any  outcome  of 
the  intellectual  advance.  We  have  just  seen  in  how  many 
directions  these  results  were  a  direct  attack  upon  the 
older"  feudal  conditions  and  institutions,  and  it  is  natu- 
rally in  order  now  to  examine  the  special  efforts  which 
were  made  by  the  forming  governments  to  take  advan- 
tage of  these  new  influences,  and  in  doing  so  to  sketch 
the  forms  of  government  and  constitution  resulting  in 
the  various  states  of  the  time. 

In  two  of  the  leading  states  of  Europe  governments 
which  may  be  called  really  national  were  established — in 
France  and  England.  Their  history  is  consequently  of 
greater  interest  to  us  and  will  occupy  us  most  fully. 
One  other  country,  Spain,  arrived  at  a  government  which 

305 


3o6  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

embraced  the  whole  territory  of  the  state,  but  which  was 
not  supported,  as  in  the  other  two  cases,  by  a  thoroughly 
united  national  feeUng.  In  neither  Italy  nor  Germany 
was  any  true  general  government  for  the  whole  state 
established,  for  reasons  which  we  have  already  seen;  but 
in  both  cases  some  interesting  political  results  are  to  be 
noticed  and  many  indications  that  a  genuine  national 
feeling  and  spirit  existed,  though  unable  to  express  it- 
self through  political  institutions.  In  many  of  the  minor 
states  which  arose  in  portions  of  these  two  countries, 
governments,  which  were  really  national  in  everything 
except  extent  of  territory,  were  formed. 

In  the  case  of  France  the  great  fact  at  the  opening  of 
its  national  history  was  feudalism.  We  have  seen  how 
completely  that  system  prevailed  in  the  France  of  the 
tenth  century,  and  the  prevalence  of  feudalism  meant 
the  existence  of  two  fatal  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the 
formation  of  any  efficient  national  government.  It  meant 
the  geographical  subdivision  of  the  country  into  practi- 
cally independent  fragments,  and  it  meant  the  subdivi- 
sion of  the  general  authority  in  the  same  way,  so  that  the 
usual  functions  of  a  general  government  could  no  longer 
be  exercised  throughout  the  state  by  the  nominal  central 
power,  but  were  exercised  in  fragments  by  local  powers. 
We  have  seen  also  how  the  Capetian  dynasty  arose  out 
of  this  feudalism  itself,  and  though  possessed  in  theory 
of  very  extensive  powers,  had  in  reality  only  so  much 
power  as  it  could  derive  from  its  own  family  resources. 

These  facts  indicate  clearly  enough  the  twofold  task 
which  lay  before  the  Capetian  dynasty  at  the  beginning 
of  its  history,  and  which  it  performed  so  faithfully  and  so 
successfully.  It  must  reconstruct  the  geographical  unity 
of  France  by  bringing  all  the  fragments  into  which  its 
territory  had  been  separated  under  its  own  immediate 
control — a  task  which  was  to  be  rendered  doubly  difficult 


THE  FORMATION  OF  FRANCE  307 

by  the  fact  that  several  of  the  largest  of  these  fragments 
were  in  the  possession  of  a  foreign  sovereign,  the  king  of 
England.  It  had,  in  the  second  place,  to  recover  the 
prerogatives  usurped  by  the  rulers  of  these  fragments  so 
that  it  might  itself  exercise  them  in  fact  as  well  as  possess 
them  in  theory,  and  in  doing  so  it  must,  in  great  measure, 
create  the  national  institutions  through  which  these  func- 
tions of  a  central  government  could  be  exercised. 

The  first  four  Capetian  kings,  from  Hugh  Capet  to 
Philip  I,  do  not  seem  to  have  been  altogether  unconscious 
of  the  great  problems  which  they  had  to  solve,  but  their 
situation  was  such  that  they  could  do  but  little.  The 
first  steps  were  necessarily  slow,  and  it  should  be  consid- 
ered by  no  means  a  small  contribution  to  the  final  result 
that  these  kings  were  able  to  strengthen  the  hold  of  the 
Capetian  family  upon  the  throne  of  France,  as  they  un- 
questionably did,  to  prevent  any  further  loss  of  royal 
power,  and  to  maintain  the  respect  for  the  kingship  in 
the  turbulent  society  of  the  time.  In  certain  localities 
where  special  conditions  favored  a  kind  of  natural  inde- 
pendence there  may  have  been  loss  rather  than  gain,  as 
in  Flanders  and  Brittany,  but  on  the  whole  the  current 
was  in  the  direction  of  a  stronger  monarchy.  They  con- 
tinued also  and  confirmed  the  alliance  with  the  church, 
which  had  aided  so  greatly  the  rise  of  their  family  and 
from  .which  it  had  still  so  much  to  gain.  In  comparison 
with  these  more  general  and  negative,  but  not  therefore 
unimportant,  results,  any  specific  gains  which  these  kings 
made  were  insignificant.  Philip  I  does  not  rank  in  his- 
tory as  a  very  strong  or  energetic  king,  but  he  saw  clearly 
enough  what  was  the  first  necessary  step  to  be  taken,  the 
consolidation  of  his  own  feudal  state,  the  duchy  of 
France,  and  he  bequeathed  that  policy  to  his  successor. 

With  Louis  VI,  the  Fat,  in  1108,  the  work  was  taken 
vigorously  and  successfully  in  hand,  and  the  succession 
opens  of  the  great  sovereigns  of  the  Capetian  house — of 


3o8  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

the  sovereigns  who  may  justly  be  called  great  in  the  work 
of  constructing  France,  if  not  in  any  wider  sense.  The 
chief  effort  of  Louis's  reign  was  to  overthrow  the  small 
nobles  who  were  his  vassals  as  duke,  and  who  had  been 
making  themselves  as  independent  in  their  smaller  terri- 
tories as  the  great  vassals  had  throughout  the  greater 
France,  and  some  of  whom  had  brought  it  to  such  a  pass 
that  it  was  almost  impossible  for  the  king  to  travel  with 
freedom  from  one  part  of  his  domain  to  another.  This 
work  he  practically  accompHshed,  and  he  centralized  the 
duchy  to  such  an  extent  that  later  kings  had  its  undivided 
resources  to  draw  upon  in  the  more  severe  struggle  which 
was  before  them. 

This  struggle  with  the  great  barons  Louis  VI  also  began 
with  vigor,  though  without  any  very  marked  success.  In 
Flanders,  Champagne,  and  Aquitaine  he  asserted  the 
rights  of  the  king  and  attempted  to  maintain  them  with 
force,  and  he  carried  on  an  almost  continuous  war  with 
his  great  rival  the  Duke  of  Normandy.  Earlier  Capetian 
kings  had  recognized  the  great  strength  of  the  dukes  of 
Normandy  and  the  importance  of  having  them  as  allies 
or  of  weakening  their  power  as  opportunity  ofifered,  but 
the  accession  of  Duke  William  to  the  English  throne  in 
1066  had  greatly  increased  the  danger  from  this  source. 
The  continual  quarrels  in  the  English  royal  family  through 
the  whole  period  furnished  an  opportunity  which  could 
be  turned  to  advantage  by  the  French  kings,  and  Louis 
supported  the  son  of  Robert  against  Henry  I,  though  in 
the  end  unsuccessfully.  The  position  of  the  English  in 
France  was  stronger,  indeed,  at  the  close  of  Louis's  reign 
than  at  the  beginning,  by  reason  of  the  marriage  of  Henry's 
daughter  Matilda  with  the  Count  of  Anjou,  who  had 
been  Louis's  ally.  The  great  gain  of  Louis's  life  was  the 
centralization  of  the  duchy  and  the  decidedly  stronger 
position  which  the  king  had  gained  throughout  all  cen- 
tral France. 


THE  FORMATION  OF  FRANCE  309 

In  the  next  reign,  that  of  Louis  VII,  the  territory  held 
by  the  English  kings  upon  the  Continent  was  extended  so 
widely  that  it  threatened  the  very  existence  of  an  inde- 
pendent France  under  the  Capetian  house.  The  wide 
fiefs  which  had  been  brought  together  by  the  dukes  of 
Aquitaine,  covering  nearly  a  quarter  of  the  present  ter- 
ritory of  France,  fell  to  an  heiress,  Eleanor,  on  the  death 
of  her  father,  WilHam  X,  the  last  duke.  Louis  VI  had 
not  neglected  the  opportunity  and  had  secured  the  hand 
of  Eleanor  for  his  son  Louis.  But  there  existed  between 
this  pair,  apparently,  a  complete  incompatibility  of  tem- 
per. Eleanor  had  little  respect  for  Louis,  and  her  con- 
duct was  not  altogether  proper,  at  least  not  in  the  eyes 
of  her  somewhat  austere  husband,  and  on  his  return  from 
the  second  crusade  the  marriage  was  annulled.  But  such 
a  prize  did  not  long  remain  unsought,  and  in  the  same 
year  she  married  young  Henry  of  Anjou,  son  of  Matilda, 
who  already  was  in  possession  of  all  the  English  provinces 
on  the  Continent,  and  soon  after  succeeded  to  the  English 
throne.  By  this  marriage  the  whole  of  western  France 
was  united  under  Henry  II,  considerably  more  than  one- 
third  its  present  area,  and  a  far  larger  portion  than  was 
directly  under  the  control  of  the  Capetian  king.  But 
these  lands  were  only  loosely  held  together,  and  they 
were  feudally  subject  to  Louis.  It  is  interesting  to  notice 
that  JHenry  was  not  wilUng  to  lead  his  army  in  person 
against  his  suzerain  when  Louis  had  thrown  himself  into 
Toulouse  to  defend  that  city  against  his  attack,  the  feudal 
theory  proving  itself  so  strong  even  in  such  a  case.  But 
Louis  could  make  no  headway  against  so  large  a  power, 
though  he  tried  to  do  what  he  could  and  aided  the  rebel- 
lious sons  of  Henry  against  their  father. 

His  successor,  Philip  Augustus,  made  it  the  great  ob- 
ject of  his  reign  to  enlarge  the  royal  domain,  that  is,  the 
part  of  France  directly  under  the  king's  government. 
The  domain  was  enlarged  when,  for  any  reason,  one  of 


3IO  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  great  barons,  a  count  or  a  duke,  had  given  up  his 
territory  to  the  king.  Then  there  was  no  longer  stand- 
ing between  the  rear  vassals  and  the  king  a  great  lord 
who  held  the  territory  as  his  own  little  principaHty,  more 
or  less  completely  closed  against  the  royal  interference. 
The  king  had  taken  his  place,  and  the  small  nobles  of 
the  territory  were  brought  into  immediate  dependence 
upon  him,  so  that  he  had  now  possession  both  of  the 
rights  of  the  old  count  or  duke,  and  also  of  the  more 
extensive  rights  of  the  national  sovereign,  which  might 
at  last  be  exercised.  Sometimes,  also,  the  kings  got  pos- 
session of  rear  liefs  before  the  county  or  duchy  was  finally 
absorbed,  and  in  both  these  ways,  though  mainly  by  the 
first,  the  new  kingdom  of  France  was  forming  and  the 
royal  power  of  the  Capetian  family  was  extending  itself 
over  the  national  territory  by  the  disappearance  of  the 
great  barons  who  had  been  its  peers  at  the  beginning  of 
its  history. 

The  long  reign  of  Philip  Augustus  was  a  time  of  most 
rapid  progress  in  this  geographical  reconstruction  of 
France.  The  county  of  Artois,  the  king  secured  by  his 
marriage;  the  counties  of  Vermandois  and  Amiens  soon 
after  as  the  result  of  a  disputed  succession.  These  ac- 
cessions greatly  enlarged  the  domain  towards  the  north- 
east. But  the  great  problem  was  to  recover  the  lands 
held  by  the  Enghsh,  and  at  this  Philip  labored  all  his 
life.  The  constant  quarrels  in  the  English  royal  family 
— of  Henry  II  with  his  sons,  of  Richard  and  John,  of 
John  and  Arthur,  and  finally  between  John  and  the  En- 
ghsh barons — greatly  aided  his  efforts,  and  Philip  was  al- 
ways on  the  side  opposed  to  the  reigning  king.  Before 
the  reign  of  John  he  had  made  only  very  slight  gains, 
the  most  important  being  the  suzerainty  of  the  county 
of  Auvergne,  which  Flenry  II  had  been  forced,  just  before 
his  death,  to  transfer  to  Philip.  But  Philip's  abandon- 
ment of  the  third  crusade,  while  it  was  still  unfinished, 


THE  FORMATION  OF  FRANCE  31I 

and  his  return  to  France  to  take  advantage  of  the  ab- 
sence of  Richard  are  evidences  of  the  power  of  political 
motives  over  his  mind,  and  of  his  superior  realization 
of  the  duties  of  his  office,  as  compared  with  the  English 
king. 

Immediately  after  the  accession  of  John  came  the  op- 
portunity for  which  Phihp  had  waited.  In  1200,  John 
deprived  the  heir  of  one  of  his  vassals,  the  eldest  son  of 
Hugh,  Count  of  La  Marche,  of  his  promised  bride  and 
married  her  himself.  The  count  took  arms  with  the 
support  of  other  nobles  of  Poitou,  and  appealed  for  jus- 
tice to  John's  suzerain,  King  Philip.  Philip  summoned 
John  to  appear  before  his  feudal  court  and  make  answer. 
When  the  court  met,  early  in  1202,  John  did  not  appear, 
and  sentence  was  pronounced  that  he  had  failed  to  meet 
his  feudal  obligations,  and  had  therefore  forfeited  all  the 
fiefs  which  he  held  of  the  king  of  France.^  Philip  pro- 
ceeded to  execute  the  sentence  immediately  by  force  of 
arms.  He  had  the  feudal  law  clearly  on  his  side.  John 
further  prejudiced  his  case  by  his  murder  of  Arthur  in 
the  next  year.  He  was  hampered  also  by  many  enemies, 
and  by  treachery  among  his  vassals,  and  though  he  may 
have  been  physically  brave  and  mentally  able,  he  was 
morally  a  coward,  and  his  defence  against  Philip's  attack 
was  weak  in  the  extreme.  Speedily  all  of  Normandy, 
Maine,  Anjou,  and  Touraine,  and  parts  of  Poitou  and 
Saintonge,  were  in  Philip's  possession,  never  to  be  recov- 
ered as  fiefs  by  the  English.  The  great  victory  of  Bou~ 
vines,  which  Philip  gained  in  12 14,  over  the  Emperor  Otto 
IV,  and  the  Count  of  Flanders,  allies  of  John,  raised  the 
prestige  of  the  king  to  its  highest  point,  and  excited  a 
popular  enthusiasm  which  may  almost  be  called  national. 

'  The  researches  of  M.  Ch.  Bemont — see  two  articles  in  the  Revue  His- 
iorique,  vol.  XXXII — have  made  it  certain  that  the  condemnation  of  John 
was  the  result  of  the  appeal  to  the  king  by  the  nobles  of  Poitou,  and  not 
of  the  murder  of  Arthur,  as  formerly  supposed.  Numerous  later  studies  of 
the  question  have  not  seriously  shaken  M.  Bemont's  conclusions. 


312  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

The  reign  of  Philip  Augustus  had  multiplied  the  area  of 
the  royal  domain  by  three,  had  strengthened  the  position 
of  the  king  beyond  the  possibility  of  rivalry  or  even  suc- 
cessful resistance  from  any  single  baron  and  had  given  it 
the  sanction  of  uninterrupted  success. 

The  reign  of  his  son,  Louis  VIII,  lasted  only  three  years, 
but  it  made  no  break  in  the  line  of  advance.  More  ter- 
ritory was  recovered  from  the  English,  including  the  im- 
portant city  of  La  Rochelle,  and  the  hold  of  the  king  on 
southeastern  France  was  strengthened. 

With  Louis  IX,  St.  Louis,  there  followed  another  long 
reign,  and  another  period  of  enormous  advance,  relatively 
not  so  great  in  territory  as  under  Philip  Augustus,  but 
one  which  left  the  royal  power,  at  its  close,  institutionally 
much  farther  along  on  the  road  to  absolutism. 

Louis  IX  was  only  eleven  years  old  at  his  father's 
death,  but  his  mother,  Blanche  of  Castile,  who  assumed 
the  regency,  was  worthy  to  be  a  sovereign  in  the  Cape- 
tian  line.  The  great  barons,  however,  had  now  begun 
to  realize  to  what  end  events  were  carrying  them,  and  to 
see,  as  they  had  to  some  extent  before  this  date,  that 
their  only  hope  of  resisting  the  policy  of  the  crown  was 
to  be  found  in  concerted  action.  They  consequently  took 
advantage  of  Louis's  minority  to  form  combinations 
among  themselves  to  deprive  the  queen  of  the  regency, 
and  in  intent,  to  check  the  advance  of  the  royal  power 
by  arms.  The  skill  of  the  queen-regent,  however,  de- 
feated all  their  plans,  and  a  similar  result  attended  an- 
other attempt  of  the  sort  after  Louis  reached  his  major- 
ity. All  these  unsuccessful  efforts  in  the  end  really  aided 
the  royal  cause.  In  1259,  Louis  made  a  treaty  with  Henry 
III,  of  England,  by  which  for  certain  small  fiefs  added 
to  his  land  in  the  southwest  of  France,  Henry  abandoned 
all  claims  to  Normandy,  Maine,  Anjou,  and  Poitou,  and 
agreed  to  hold  Guienne  as  a  fief  from  Louis.  A  treaty  of 
the  year  before  with  the  king  of  Aragon  had  made  a  simi- 


THE  FORMATION  OF  FRANCE  313 

lai  division  of  disputed  lands  in  the  southeast.  Louis 
also  profited  by  the  results  of  the  bloody  extermination 
of  the  Albigenses  which  had  been  begun  in  the  reign  of 
Philip  Augustus.  The  attempt  of  Raymond  VII,  Count 
of  Toulouse,  to  better  his  condition  by  joining  one  of 
the  coalitions  of  barons  against  the  king  had  resulted  in 
his  losing  some  of  his  lands  to  the  king,  and  he  was 
obliged  to  renew  his  consent  to  the  earlier  treaty,  by 
which  the  king's  brother,  Alfonso,  Count  of  Poitiers,  was 
to  succeed  to  Toulouse  at  Raymond's  death.  This  hap- 
pened in  1249.  In  the  year  after  Louis's  death  Alfonso 
himself  died  without  heirs,  and  the  great  county  of  Tou- 
louse was  joined  to  the  crown. 

To  offset  somewhat  these  great  accessions  of  territory 
under  the  direct  control  of  the  king,  the  system  of  ap- 
panages must  be  noted,  begun,  in  a  large  way,  by  Louis 
VIII  to  provide  for  his  younger  sons.  The  provinces, 
however,  which  were  separated  by  this  arrangement  from 
the  domain  and  made  to  depend  feudally  upon  some 
prince  of  the  royal  house,  were  not  ceded  to  him  in  full 
sovereignty,  and  the  system  did  not  lead  to  the  forma- 
tion of  a  new  series  of  independent  principalities,  nor 
prove  as  dangerous  to  the  royal  authority  as  might  seem 
probable. 

Louis's  son,  Philip  III,  though  without  originality  of 
his  own  or  strength  of  character,  followed  faithfully  the 
example  set  by  his  father,  and  was  well  served  by  officers 
trained  in  that  school.  The  great  fiefs  of  Toulouse  and 
Champagne  were  added  to  the  domain,  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  royal  courts  enlarged,  the  development  of  a  su- 
preme court  advanced,  the  king's  authority  enforced  in 
every  way  possible  in  the  great  fiefs  which  remained, 
the  independence  of  the  communes  weakened,  and  quietly 
and  without  exciting  open  opposition  the  royal  authority 
strengthened  in  all  directions.  The  growth  of  a  strong 
central  government  was  now  so  well  begun,  in  other  words, 


314  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION. 

that  it  could  go  on  almost  of  itself  under  a  sovereig^i  who 
was  able  to  do  but  little  to  direct  the  process. 

The  regular  alternation  which  seems  curiously  enough 
to  prevail  in  the  Capetian  dynasty  during  most  of  the 
medieval  portion  of  its  history  brings  us,  with  the  acces- 
sion of  Philip  IV,  to  another  strong  king,  and  to  an  epoch 
of  almost  revolutionary  progress.  But  this  was  almost 
wholly  institutional.  From  this  time  on  to  the  close  of 
the  long  English  war,  no  great  accession  of  territory  was 
made,  though  many  small  ones  were,  like  the  seizure  of 
Lyons  by  Philip  IV.  France  was  now  almost  constructed 
geographically.  The  great  central  portion  was  under  the 
direct  government  of  the  king,  except  so  far  as  the  ap- 
panages interfered  with  this.  Guienne,  Brittany,  Bur- 
gundy, and  Flanders  were  the  only  great  fiefs  still  remain- 
ing independent,  and,  with  the  exception  of  Guienne, 
they  remained  so  until  the  end  of  the  middle  ages,  and 
the  most  of  Flanders  was  never  recovered.  To  these 
must  be  added,  to  complete  the  later  French  territory, 
Provence,  which,  though  not  a  fief  of  France,  was  held 
by  a  long  series  of  French  princes  and  was  finally  ab- 
sorbed by  France  under  Louis  XL 

The  early  deaths  of  the  three  sons  of  Philip  the  Fair, 
and  the  exclusion  of  their  daughters  from  the  succession 
by  the  principle  which  was  later  called  the  SaHc  law, 
make  a  natural  close  for  the  first  period  of  Capetian  his- 
tory. With  the  immediately  following  accession  of  the 
house  of  Valois  the  Hundred  Years'  War  with  the  En- 
glish begins. 

The  great  increase  of  territory  directly  subject  to  the 
control  of  the  king  during  the  period  which  closes  with 
the  death  of  Charles  IV,  the  last  of  the  direct  Hne,  had 
necessitated  a  corresponding  development  of  the  institu- 
tional side  of  the  monarchy  to  provide  the  means  re- 
quired to  exercise  the  real  government  which  became 
more  and  more  possible.     The  reign  of  Philip  Augustus 


THE  FORMATION  OF  FRANCE  315 

marked  an  epoch  in  this  direction,  as  it  did  in  the  geo- 
graphical extension  of  the  royal  power,  and  that  of  St. 
Louis  was  even  more  distinguished  for  institutional  than 
for  territorial  growth. 

The  problem  of  administration,  of  making  the  central 
power  effectively  felt  in  all  the  details  of  local  govern- 
ment throughout  the  domain,  was  the  earhest  which  de- 
manded solution.  The  older  administrative  agent,  the 
prevot,  served  very  well  when  the  domain  was  small,  but 
was  inadequate  in  the  changed  situation.  He  was  wholly 
feudal  in  character,  administered  a  very  small  territory, 
and  was  not  well  under  control. 

In  the  bailH  Philip  Augustus  developed  a  most  effec- 
tive agent  of  the  central  power.  Free  from  feudal  influ- 
ence, appointed  by  the  king  and  entirely  dependent  upon 
him,  transferred  at  intervals  from  one  region  to  another, 
he  was  held  under  a  strict  control.  Ixx  the  district  to 
which  he  was  appointed,  he  directly  represented  the 
royal  authority  in  the  local  enforcement  of  its  regulations 
of  all  kinds,  and  in  the  care  of  its  financial  interests,  and 
also  in  military  and  even  judicial  matters,  and  formed  a 
close  bond  of  connection  between  the  central  government 
and  every  locality.  Besides  the  special  functions  of  this 
new  officer,  he  had  the  general  duty  of  looking  after  all 
the  interests  of  the  king,  and  of  extending  his  power 
and"  domain  whenever  opportunity  offered.  In  this  direc- 
tion the  services  of  the  bcillis  to  the  crown  were  as  effec- 
tive as  in  their  strictly  official  capacity,  and  not  infre- 
quently their  zeal  in  interfering  with  the  local  nobility  to 
the  king's  advantage  carried  them  on  faster  and  farther 
than  the  kings  thought  it  wise  to  follow.  In  the  great 
territories  afterwards  added  to  the  domain  in  the  south, 
this  officer  was  known  as  the  senechal,  but  had  the 
same  duties  with  some  differences  of  detail.  The  super- 
vision of  the  central  government  over  all  parts  of  the 
state  was  carried  a  step  further  by  St.  Louis  in  his  more 


3l6  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

regular  employment  of  enqueteurs,  officers  occasionally 
used  before  and  corresponding  in  duties  to  the  missi  of 
Charlemagne.  Intended  to  oversee  the  conduct  of  the 
local  officers  and  to  insure  justice,  they  became,  under 
the  stronger  government  of  Philip  the  Fair,  agents  of 
royal  oppression  and  exaction. 

Probably  the  most  difficult  task  which  the  kings  had 
to  perform  in  creating  the  state  was  to  establish  national 
courts  superior  to  the  local  and  feudal  courts  in  baronial 
hands,  and,  in  connection  with  them,  to  enforce  peace 
and  good  order — an  orderly  and  judicial  settlement  of 
disputes  instead  of  an  appeal  to  force.  The  minute  regu- 
lations with  which  the  feudal  law  itself,  as  it  began  to 
be  formed,  had  surrounded  the  practice  of  private  war, 
mimicking  on  a  small  scale  the  provisions  of  international 
law  and  even  more  formal  in  character,  are  evidences  of 
an  attempt  on  the  part  of  feudalism  itself  to  escape  from 
some  of  the  worst  evils  of  unchecked  license.  The  Truce 
of  God  was  able  to  aid  in  this  direction  during  a  time  when 
the  church  was  the  only  general  power  capable  of  enforc- 
ing the  requirements  of  such  a  truce.  But  it  was  not 
possible  for  the  evil  to  be  entirely  done  away  with,  and 
good  order  to  be  really  maintained,  until  the  general 
causes,  whose  operation  we  noticed  in  the  last  chapter, 
had  finally  transformed  society  and  created  a  strong  de- 
mand for  security.  Then  they  could  give  the  central 
government  an  effective  support  that  would  enable  it  to 
enforce  obedience  to  the  law.  This  transformation  of 
society  was  by  no  means  complete  in  the  last  half  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  but  it  had  advanced  so  far  that  its 
influence  can  be  distinctly  seen,  and  the  operation  of  the 
royal  courts  may  begin  to  be  called  national. 

The  original  court  of  the  king,  the  curia  regis,  was  an 
assembly  of  court  officials,  vassals,  and  magnates  sub- 
ject to  the  king,  which  met  at  short  intervals,  at  his  sum- 
mons, to  perform  a  great  variety  of  functions — judicial, 


THE  FORMATION  OF  FRANCE  317 

advisory,  and  semi-legislative — functions  which  were  to 
be  performed  after  a  time,  with  the  increasing  complex- 
ity of  government,  by  separate  bodies  differentiated  from 
this  original  court.  Under  the  early  Capetian  kings  the 
portion  of  France  under  its  actual  jurisdiction  was  very 
small,  and  its  means  of  enforcing  any  decree  were  very 
Hmited.  In  the  period  which  follows,  down  to  the  reign 
of  St.  Louis,  the  wider  extension  of  the  royal  power  af- 
fected the  court  in  two  directions.  In  one  there  is  to  be 
seen  a  constantly  increasing  respect  paid  to  the  court  on 
the  part  of  the  feudal  lords,  and  a  growing  tendency  to 
submit  to  its  decrees,  a  tendency  which,  though  not  by 
any  means  universal  as  yet,  was  marked  enough  to  be 
a  sure  sign  of  the  increasing  respect  paid  to  the  king. 
In  another  direction,  in  the  court  itself,  there  is  evident 
the  gradual  formation  from  its  members  of  a  small  body 
constantly  present  and  especially  devoted  to  the  study 
of  the  law — a  result  which  followed  naturally  from  the 
increasing  business  of  the  court. 

This  latter  fact  is  the  first  indication  of  the  next  im- 
portant advance.  From  the  reign  of  St.  Louis  the  judi- 
cial business  of  the  court  was  regularly  in  the  hands  of 
a  permanent  body  of  specially  trained  men,  selected  by 
the  king,  and  this  body  now  began  to  be  called  the  Par- 
lement.  The  lords  and  high  clergy  still  attended  occa- 
sionally, when  especially  summoned,  in  cases  which  par- 
ticularly concerned  their  own  interests,  but  the  supreme 
court  of  the  kingdom  had  now  been  separated  from  the 
earlier  general  body,  the  curia  regis,  and  had  begun  its 
separate  development. 

Along  with  this  evolution  of  the  supreme  court  there 
went  also  a  great  increase  of  respect  and  of  business  in 
the  case  of  the  subordinate  national  courts,  those  held 
by  the  prcvois  and  the  haillis.  There  are,  also,  two  other 
facts  to  be  noticed  in  the  same  connection,  as  of  the  ut- 
most importance  in  the  national  centralization.     One  is 


3l8  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  introduction  of  a  system  of  appeals,  and  the  other, 
the  revived  study  of  the  Roman  law. 

The  development  of  a  series  of  royal  courts  might  serve 
a  good  purpose  in  centralizing  the  domain,  even  if  their 
action  were  confined  to  that,  but  would  be  of  little  use 
in  binding  all  France  together,  if  the  feudal  courts  of 
the  great  fiefs,  which  were  still  left,  remained  supreme 
and  independent.  Under  St.  Louis  and  his  son,  the  right 
of  appeal,  which  had  existed  before  in  some  parts  of  the 
kingdom,  was  definitely  established  for  all  France — the 
right  of  appeal  to  the  royal  courts,  local  and  supreme, 
from  all  feudal  courts  of  whatever  grade,  including  those 
of  the  greatest  and  most  independent  lords,  like  the  king 
of  England  in  his  capacity  as  duke  of  Guienne.^ 

That  the  establishment  of  this  right  of  appeal  from 
themselves  to  the  king  revolutionized  the  whole  situation 
and  involved  in  reality  the  total  destruction  of  their 
political  independence,  the  barons  do  not  seem  to  have 
clearly  perceived;  but  that  they  certainly  resisted  this 
advance  of  the  royal  power  with  some  determination  is 
evident  from  the  numerous  ordinances  which  were  made 
in  the  following  period  against  the  means  they  were  em- 
ploying to  maintain  the  independence  of  their  courts. 
But  their  power  of  resistance  was  greatly  undermined 
by  the  theory  of  the  kingship,  which  had  always  existed 
in  the  feudal  law,  and  which  was  now  greatly  developed 
under  the  influence  of  the  Roman  law.  If  the  king  was 
considered  to  be  the  supreme  source  of  law  and  justice, 
and  if  the  right  of  the  baron  to  hold  a  court  was  only  a 
delegated  right,  then  there  was  no  ground  on  which  an 
appeal  to  the  royal  courts  could  be  denied. 

It  was  in  the  thirteenth  century,  especially  in  its  latter 

'  The  supreme  feudal  courts  in  some  of  the  great  fiefs,  as  in  Normandy, 
Champagne,  and  Toulouse,  were  allowed  to  continue,  their  judges,  under 
the  new  arrangement,  being  members  of  the  Parlement  of  Paris  sent  for  the 
purpose;  but  they  continued  not  as  independent  courts,  but  as  provincial 
parlemenls,  clearly  incorporated  in  the  national  judiciary  system. 


THE  FORMATION  OF  FRANCE  319 

half,  that  the  revived  study  of  the  Roman  law  began 
to  have  a  decided  practical  influence  upon  the  formation 
of  the  modern  state  and  modern  law.  We  cannot  enter 
here  into  the  special  influence  which  it  had  in  the  field 
of  law  itself,  less  decisive  in  France  than  in  Germany, 
but  far  more  extensive  everywhere  on  the  Continent  than 
in  England.  It  is  its  influence  upon  institutions  and  the 
development  of  government  which  we  must  regard. 

The  channel  through  which  the  principles  of  the  Roman 
law  were  brought  at  this  time  into  an  immediate  influ- 
ence upon  the  institutional  side  of  the  national  growth, 
was  the  position  obtained  by  the  professional  body  of 
trained  lawyers,  now  beginning  to  be  formed.  These 
men  were  soon  employed  as  judges  in  the  subordinate 
courts,  and  gradually  made  their  way  into  the  Parlement 
itself,  and  thus  that  body  became  more  and  more  sep- 
arated as  a  permanent  institution  exercising  the  judicial 
functions  of  the  curia  regis  practically  alone.  And  along 
another  line  also  the  same  connection  of  the  Roman  law 
with  the  state  was  made  through  the  influence  of  the 
lawyers  in  the  other  body  which  was  just  now  forming 
from  the  curia  regis,  the  Estates  General. 

It  was  by  infusing  its  spirit  into  the  progress  which 
had  begun,  and  directing  it  to  certain  ideals,  rather  than 
as  a  source  of  actual  institutions  that  the  Roman  law  af- 
fected the  result.  It  was  the  law  of  a  thoroughly  cen- 
tralized state.  Its  spirit  was  that  of  a  complete  absolut- 
ism. All  its  principles  and  maxims  looked  to  the  king 
as  the  centre  and  source  of  the  whole  institutional  life 
of  the  state.  The  supreme  right  to  judge,  to  administer, 
to  legislate,  and  to  tax  was  possessed  by  the  sovereign. 
This  was  the  theory  of  the  state  which  the  lawyers  were 
drawing  from  the  Roman  law  everywhere,  even,  to  some 
extent  at  least,  in  England.  As  the  practical  manage- 
ment of  public  affairs  of  all  sorts  passed  more  and  more 
into  the  hands  of  men  trained  in  these  ideas,  and  as  the 


320  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Roman  law  gradually  came  to  be  regarded  as  the  con- 
trolling law  in  all  new  cases,  the  actual  facts  were  made 
to  conform  more  and  more  exactly  to  the  theory.  This 
new  influence  was,  thus,  a  tremendous  reinforcement  to 
the  primitive  theory  of  the  kingship  which  had  come  down 
to  the  Capetians  from  the  earlier  dynasties  and  which  had 
lived  through  the  age  of  feudal  disintegration,  a  theory 
which  had  been  itself  formed  after  the  conquest  very 
largely  on  the  Roman  model.  But  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  it  was  not  now  mere  theory.  The  influence 
exerted  upon  the  growth  of  the  state  was  far  more  de- 
cisive than  that  of  any  mere  theory,  for  it  was  the  con- 
trolling ideal  of  the  men  who  were  most  active  in  shaping 
the  new  institutions.^  It  has  been  said  of  this  influence: 
"It  was  this  more  than  all  other  causes  combined  which 
effected  the  transformation  of  the  feudal  medieval  sov- 
ereignty into  the  absolute  monarchies  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  "2  and  one  feels  hardly  justified  in  calhng  the 
statement  an  exaggeration. 

During  the  last  part  of  this  period  three  other  insti- 
tutions of  great  importance  began  their  growth,  though 
their  great  development  was  to  lie  in  the  time  of  the 

1  Two  points  may  be  emphasized  in  connection  with  this  discussion  of 
French  judicial  institutions,  as  facts  of  the  utmost  importance  in  account- 
ing for  the  different  resuUs  in  France  and  England.  One  of  them  is  this, 
that  a  national  system  of  law  and  national  courts  had  never  disappeared  in 
England  as  completely  as  they  had  in  France.  They  did  not  have  to  be 
reconstructed  almost  de  novo  under  the  influence  of  any  theories,  and  it  was 
not  true  of  England,  as  it  was  of  France,  that  the  chief  dependence  for  a 
common  law  was  upon  a  confused  and  contradictory  local  and  customary 
law  which  was  totally  xmfit  to  grow  into  a  general  national  law  with  the 
rapidity  necessary  to  licep  pace  with  geographical  extension  of  the  royal 
power.  From  early  in  the  reign  of  Henry  II  the  royal  courts  rapidly  built 
up  a  common  law  which  was  truly  national.  The  other  fact  is  that  France 
did  not  have  so  complete  a  system  of  local  self-government  as  England,  a 
system  based  upon  different  ideas  from  those  of  the  Roman  law,  and  able 
to  train  individual  men  for  the  public  service  and  the  whole  nation  in  the 
exercise  of  liberty.  This  fact  was,  however,  of  more  decisive  influence  in 
the  later  stages  of  French  history  than  at  the  point  we  have  now  reached. 

^  The  New  York  Nation,  vol.  XL,  p.  487. 


THE   FORMATION    OF   FRANCE  32 1 

English  war  which  followed.  These  were  the  standing 
army,  the  system  of  national  taxation,  and  the  Estates 
General. 

With  the  enlargement  of  the  domain,  and  the  more 
important  and  more  distant  wars  which  followed,  the 
feudal  levies  and  the  older  general  levy  proved  them- 
selves insufficient  and  less  to  be  depended  upon  than  in 
earlier  times.  Before  the  reign  of  Philip  Augustus  there 
are  instances  of  the  employment  of  paid  soldiers,  and 
their  use  constantly  increased.  With  their  employment, 
and  the  other  increasing  expenses  of  the  state,  the  neces- 
sity arose  for  a  larger  income  than  the  feudal  revenues 
supplied.  Some  points  connected  with  the  origin  of  gen- 
eral taxation  are  not  clear,  but  the  first  steps  towards  it 
seem  to  have  been  taken  in  the  introduction,  under  Philip 
Augustus,  of  a  money  composition  for  military  service 
not  performed.  During  the  English  wars  the  method  of 
this  tax  changed  somewhat.  The  kings  of  that  time  were 
not  always  in  a  position  to  maintain  all  that  their  pred- 
ecessors had  gained,  and  the  Estates  General  attempted 
to  compel  a  recognition  of  their  right  to  grant  a  tax 
before  it  could  be  legally  collected,  but  without  final  suc- 
cess. The  right  of  the  king  to  impose  taxes  was  in  the 
end  recognized.  It  was  not  until  the  close  of  the  Hun- 
dred Years'  War,  in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
that  these  two  things  were  definitely  established,  a  regu- 
larly organized  standing  army,  and  an  equally  well  or- 
ganized and  permanent  system  of  taxation,  imposed  by 
the  king  and  collected  throughout  the  kingdom  by  his 
agents.  It  can  be  seen  at  once  that  when  this  point  was 
reached  the  central  government  was  independent  of  the 
feudal  system.  It  had  recovered  from  its  vassals  two  of 
its  most  important  functions,  the  loss  of  which  in  the 
ninth  and  tenth  centuries  had  forced  it  to  submit  to  the 
feudal  regime.  The  failure  of  the  Estates  General  to 
make  good  their  claim  to  a  right  to  vote  the  taxes  had 


32  2  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

rendered  the  crown  independent  also  of  anything  that 
may  be  called  the  people,  and  with  its  assumption,  in 
addition,  of  the  right  of  legislation,  it  became  the  only 
factor  in  the  government.  The  absolute  monarchy  was 
complete  in  outline  though  not  yet  worked  out  in  all 
details. 

The  institutions  which  we  have  been  considering  down 
to  this  point  are  all  institutions  of  centralization.  Their 
tendency  was  to  increase  very  greatly  the  power  of  the 
king,  to  undermine  all  forms  of  local  independence,  and 
to  bring  the  control  of  public  matters  of  every  kind  more 
and  more  completely  into  the  king's  hands.  Now  we 
come  to  the  beginning  of  an  institution  which  contained 
within  itself  a  possibility  of  most  serious  danger  for  this 
growing  absolutism.  It  is  the  Estates  General — States 
General — the  appearance,  or  reappearance,  of  a  public 
assembly  having  legislative  functions. 

Leaving  one  side  the  uncertain  and  not  yet  sufl&ciently 
investigated  question  as  to  the  exact  character  in  diflfer- 
ent  countries  of  the  earlier  institution  into  which  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  cities  were  now  admitted,  it  is  clear 
that  in  all  the  states  of  Europe  there  was  such  an  insti- 
tution already  in  existence.  The  king's  vassals  and  the 
magnates  of  the  realm,  lay  and  ecclesiastical,  came  to- 
gether at  his  summons — the  clergy  meeting  sometimes, 
though  by  no  means  frequently,  by  themselves— to  per- 
form without  distinguishing  between  them  a  variety  of 
functions  as  occasion  demanded,  sometimes  judicial,  to  de- 
cide cases  that  arose  under  the  feudal  law,  and  to  deter- 
mine what  customs  should  be  recognized  as  having  the 
force  of  law,  or  in  what  way  they  should  be  changed,  and 
to  give  advice  in  new  cases.  These  last  were  acts  which 
would  correspond  most  nearly  to  legislation  of  anything 
during  the  feudal  period,  when  formal  legislation  seems  to 
have  been  wanting,  except  for  enactments  in  the  form  of 
royal  edicts  which  were  occasionally  issued  with  the  con- 


THE  FORMATION  OF  FRANCE  323 

sent  of  the  assembly.  Into  this  body,  representatives  of 
the  Third  Estate  were  now  admitted,  in  all  the  leading 
countries  of  Europe,  and  it  gradually  assumed  a  more  defi- 
nite organization  and  clearer  legislative  functions.  France 
was  the  last  of  the  larger  states  to  take  this  step;  the 
Spanish  states  of  Aragon  and  Castile  were  the  first,  soon 
after  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century;  Sicily  followed 
in  1232,  Germany  in  1255,  England  in  1265,  and  France 
in  1302.  Instances  of  the  appearance  of  representatives 
of  the  towns  in  the  earlier  body  may  be  found  in  some 
cases  before,  but  the  definite  beginning  of  the  new  institu- 
tion was  at  the  dates  given. 

The  special  occasion  which  led  to  the  creation  of  this 
new  institution  is  itself  significant  of  the  progress  which 
the  royal  authority  had  made.  One  of  the  most  impor- 
tant resources  of  the  early  Capetians  had  been  the  wealth 
of  the  church.  But  they  had  drawn  from  this  source,  in 
the  way  of  a  general  levy  on  the  revenues  of  ecclesiastics, 
only  with  the  consent  of  the  pope,  granted  in  each  case 
for  some  object  of  which  the  pope  approved.  Now  Philip 
the  Fair  felt  himself  strong  enough  to  dispense  with  this 
consent,  and  to  demand  that  the  clergy  should  be  sub- 
ject, hke  other  classes,  to  the  state's  rapidly  forming  tax 
system.  The  pope  took  up  at  once  the  defence  of  his 
rights,  and  the  conflict,  begun  on  the  question  of  taxation, 
rapi-dly  involved  a  great  variety  of  points  concerning  the 
position  of  virtual  political  independence  within  the  state, 
which  the  church  asserted  for  itself.  Upon  some  one  or 
other  of  these  points  all  the  strong  Capetian  kings — Louis 
VI,  Philip  Augustus,  and  St.  Louis — had  come  into  col- 
lision with  the  papacy.  Now  the  state  was  so  nearly 
centralized  that  the  war  was  waged  on  all  these  issues  at 
once,  and  seemed  to  involve  the  whole  relation  of  the 
church  to  the  state. 

It  was  most  likely  for  its  general  effect,  to  make  an 
imposing  display  of  the  fact  that  the  whole  nation  was 


324  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

behind  him  in  this  conflict,  or  at  least  that  he  controlled 
the  nation,  that  Philip  called  together  the  first,  or  the 
first  important,  Estates  General  in  1302.^  In  doing  this, 
he  gave  it  a  really  representative  character,  and  a  defi- 
niteness  of  composition  which  made  it  a  new  institution. 
The  members  of  the  first  two  estates,  the  clergy  and  the 
nobles,  were  summoned  personally  and  attended  in  per- 
son or  by  proxy.  The  towns  of  the  whole  kingdom, 
summoned  through  the  baillis,  elected  representatives  to 
form  the  Third  Estate. 

It  was  the  power  of  money  which  had  raised  the  Third 
Estate  to  a  position  in  the  community  somewhere  near  the 
other  two.  It  was  not  to  obtain  their  consent  to  a  tax, 
however,  that  representatives  of  the  Third  Estate  had  in 
this  case  been  summoned  to  the  Estates  General.  The 
immediate  object  was  to  obtain  the  support  of  all  orders 
for  the  king's  general  policy.  It  was  not  very  long,  how- 
ever, before  the  kings  showed  themselves  disposed  to  sub- 
mit the  question  of  taxation  to  the  sanction  of  the  Es- 
tates, in  order  that  the  collection  of  it  might  be  easier. 
In  doing  this,  the  kings  created  an  extremely  dangerous 
weapon  against  themselves,  if  the  Estates  General  had 
been  able  to  use  it.  It  was  not  entirely  their  fault  that 
they  were  not.  The  fact  that  this  assembly  was  at  first 
only  an  advisory  body,  and  had  no  power  of  independent 
action,  that  the  rights  of  legislation  and  of  taxation  were 
practically  in  the  hands  of  the  king,  was  a  most  serious 
obstacle  to  the  formation  of  a  constitutional  monarchy, 

*  It  is  by  no  means  improbable  that,  in  taking  this  step,  Philip  was  con- 
sciously following  the  example  set  by  Edward  I  of  England,  a  year  or  two 
before,  in  his  contest  with  Boniface  VIII  over  the  feudal  relationship  of 
Scotland.  The  evidence  is  clear  that  Philip  was  familiar  with  these  events 
in  England,  and  the  idea  is  an  interesting  one  that  the  suggestion  of  the 
French  Estates  General  may  have  come  from  the  English  Parliament. 
Whatever  may  be  true  as  to  this  particular  occasion,  however,  the  Estates 
General  would  certainly  have  been  formed  before  many  years.  For  the 
argument  of  Edward  I  in  1279  that  the  clergy  should  pay  taxes  like  the 
laity,  see  Barker,  The  Dominican  Order  and  Convocation,  p.  65. 


THE  FORMATION  OF  FRANCE  325 

but  not  an  absolutely  fatal  one.  The  French  assembly 
still  had  within  itself  the  possibihties  of  the  English  Par- 
liament.^ If  it  could  have  obtained  a  solid  popular  sup- 
port and  a  leadership  that  would  have  commanded  gen- 
eral respect,  if  there  had  been  throughout  France  a 
general  experience  and  understanding  of  self-government 
as  a  reserve  fund  upon  which  it  could  have  drawn,  it 
might,  in  all  probability,  have  gained  what  was  gained 
in  the  sister  kingdom.  It  was  the  lack  of  these  non- 
institutional  and  intangible  but  powerful  elements  of 
growth  that  was  fatal. 

The  epoch  of  rapid  geographical  and  institutional 
growth  under  the  Capetian  kings  of  the  direct  line  was 
succeeded  by  a  long  period  of  confusion  and  disaster,  in 
which  the  national  development  in  both  these  directions 
almost  entirely  ceased.  Soon  after  the  accession  of  Philip 
VI,  the  first  king  of  the  House  of  Valois,  the  Hundred 
Years'  War  with  England  began.  In  its  real  meaning 
it  was  a  struggle  over  the  last  English  possessions  in 
France.  Philip  VI  had  immediately  taken  up  the  old 
policy  of  weakening  the  English  hold  on  Guienne  by  in- 
trigue and  by  every  other  means  at  hand,  and  Edward 
III  was  not  slow  to  defend  himself.  It  was  a  result, 
however,  of  the  more  truly  national  character  which  both 
states  had  now  assumed,  that  the  war  involved  wider 
issues  than  in  its  earlier  stages — the  question  of  the  su- 
premacy of  England  over  Scotland,  and  of  France  over 
Flanders,  and  finally  for  a  time  the  dangerous  possibility, 

*  The  legal  sources  from  which  the  fundamental  and  creative  principles  of 
Magna  Carta  were  drawn  in  England  existed  with  no  important  difference 
in  France.  The  whole  institutional  situation,  as  the  starting-point  of  later 
constitutional  growth,  was  alike  in  the  two  countries  except  for  the  stronger 
monarch}^  and  local  self-government  in  the  English  shires.  These  peculiari- 
ties of  England,  though  of  great  importance  as  said  above,  affected  the  pur- 
pose, spirit,  and  character  of  the  actors  in  events,  not  the  institutional 
foundations  upon  which  they  built. 


326  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

dangerous  alike  for  England  and  for  France,  that  the 
English  king  might  actually  make  good  that  claim  to 
the  throne  of  France  which  had  been  advanced  at  first 
mainly  as  a  war  measure. 

The  Hundred  Years'  War  opened  with  a  series  of  dis- 
asters for  the  French,  and  of  great  victories  for  the  En- 
glish, against  overwhelming  odds,  which  are  in  themselves 
suggestive  of  the  difference  between  the  two  nations. 
The  French  armies,  still  composed  chiefly  of  nobles,  their 
contempt  for  the  foot-soldier  increased  by  decisive  vic- 
tories over  the  Flemings  recently  gained,  were  filled  with 
over-confidence  in  the  face  of  English  armies  which  seemed 
to  be  composed  almost  wholly  of  footmen.  But  the  En- 
glish foot-soldiers  were  different  men  from  any  that  the 
French  had  met  before.  They  had  a  sturdy  self-reliance, 
and  a  feeling  that  they  were  a  match  for  their  noble  ene- 
mies which  were  the  outgrowth  of  their  history,  recent 
as  well  as  ancient — of  a  long  past  which  the  French  had 
once  shared  with  them,  but  with  which,  in  their  military 
system  as  in  other  things,  the  French  had  broken  more 
completely  than  the  English.  The  result  was  the  battles 
of  Crecy  and  of  Poitiers  and  the  anarchy  which  followed 
in  France. 

The  king  was  a  prisoner  in  England;  the  dauphin  was 
young  and  had  not  yet  begun  to  display  the  capacity 
for  government  which  he  showed  as  king;  the  nearest 
prince  of  the  blood,  Charles  of  Navarre,  was  a  selfish 
schemer;  and  a  feeling  had  arisen  that  the  king  and  the 
nobles  had  proved  themselves  unfit  to  deal  with  the  situ- 
ation. There  was  an  opportunity  for  the  Estates  General 
to  seize  upon  the  control  of  affairs,  and  to  begin  the  for- 
mation of  a  constitution  which  the  leaders  of  the  Third 
Estate  quickly  recognized. 

The  demands  which  the  circumstances  enabled  them 
to  make,  some  of  which  were  granted  them  for  the  time 
being,   were  closely  like   the  most  important   principles 


THE  FORMATION  OF  FRANCE  327 

which  were  being  slowly  expressed  in  the  English  consti- 
tution. They  demanded  the  right  to  vote  the  taxes  and 
to  control  their  expenditure,  that  the  king's  ministers 
should  be  held  responsible  to  the  law,  that  the  adminis- 
tration of  justice  should  be  without  favor  or  bribery,  and 
that  they  should  have  the  right  to  select  certain  members 
of  the  king's  council,  and,  also,  the  concession  of  period- 
ical meetings  for  the  Estates  General,  and  these  demands 
were  put  somewhat  after  the  EngHsh  fashion  in  the  form 
of  conditions  attached  to  grants  of  money. 

If  these  points  had  been  permanently  established  in 
the  French  constitution,  it  would  have  been  the  sudden 
creation  of  a  limited  monarchy,  the  introduction  in  a 
single  decade  of  overpowering  restraints  upon  the  king, 
with  no  history  of  steady  growth  behind  them.  The 
whole  history  of  France  had  been  tending  in  the  oppo- 
site direction,  and  in  this  fact  was  the  great  weakness  of 
such  an  attempt  at  revolution,  and  the  main  cause  of  its 
failure.  The  reform  party  had  no  strong  leadership,  and 
it  had  no  general  popular  support.  The  career  of  Etienne 
Marcel  is  extremely  interesting,  but  it  was  not  without 
its  demagogic  features.  The  nobles  lent  no  support  to 
the  attempt,  and  the  whole  of  French  history  did  not 
produce  a  leader  from  the  middle  class  like  Stephen  Lang- 
ton,  or  one  from  the  nobles  like  Simon  de  Montfort. 
The  Paris  mob  also  had,  in  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  too  great  an  influence  on  the  course  of  events,  and 
exhibited  at  that  early  date  the  characteristic  features 
and  fatal  results  which  have  appeared  in  almost  every 
century  since,  and  which  are  so  familiar  to  us  in  the 
history  of  the  French  Revolution  and  of  the  Commune. 
This  attempt  to  form  a  limited  monarchy,  and  the  simi- 
lar one  which  circumstances  again  allowed  in  1413,  met 
with  no  final  success,  and  the  growth  of  the  absolute 
monarchy  went  on,  delayed,  but  not  changed  in  character. 

With  the  next  king,  Charles  V,  the  Wise,  a  strong  and 


328  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

skilful  king  again  succeeded  a  weak  one,  and  the  royal 
power  recovered  its  losses  and  made  new  progress.  When 
he  had  well  prepared  for  it,  he  renewed  the  English  war, 
which  had  been  closed  for  a  time  by  the  treaty  of  Bre- 
tigny,  and,  by  wisely  avoiding  pitched  battles,  he  wearied 
out  his  enemy  and  recovered  nearly  all  Guienne.  He 
enforced  the  right  of  appeal  to  the  national  courts,  for- 
bade private  war,  enlarged  greatly  the  paid  army,  avoided 
meeting  the  Estates  General,  and  strengthened  the  king's 
hold  upon  the  taxing  power,  and  made  further  progress 
in  getting  its  collection  into  the  hands  of  royal  officers. 
The  right  of  the  king  to  decree  a  new  tax  not  consented 
to  by  those  who  were  to  pay  it  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  yet  recognized;  but  the  consent  was  obtained  from 
no  regular  body,  sometimes  from  assemblies  approaching 
in  character  to  the  Estates  General,  sometimes  from  pro- 
vincial estates,  sometimes  from  cities,  and  when  once 
granted  the  tax  was  collected  permanently  without  a  new 
grant,  and  was  even  increased  by  the  king  with  no  con- 
sent asked,  and  in  this  way  France  was  gradually  brought 
to  regard  the  right  of  taxation  as  a  prerogative  of  the 
king's. 

After  Charles  V  came  the  long  reign  of  the  weak  and 
insane  Charles  VI,  filled  with  confusion  and  with  civil 
contests  between  the  utterly  selfish  princes  of  the  blood 
and  their  adherents,  and  closed  with  the  almost  fatal 
triumph  of  Henry  V  of  England. 

The  son  of  Charles  VI,  Charles  the  Victorious,  was  the 
last  king  of  France  whose  reign  can  be  said  to  have  been 
wholly  in  the  middle  ages  and  occupied  entirely  with  the 
old  problems.  His  place  was  created  for  him  by  the 
great  popular  movement  to  which  Joan  of  Arc  gave 
leadership,  and  which  reveals  to  us  in  the  clearest  light 
the  depth  of  the  national  feeling  which  had  now  come 
into  existence  in  France.  By  this  the  English  were  ex- 
pelled, to  be  prevented  from  ever  returning  by  their  own 


THE  FORMATION  OF  FRANCE  329 

civil  War  of  the  Roses,  and  by  the  wholly  changed  in- 
ternational conditions  which  confronted  the  new  mon- 
archy of  the  Tudors  at  the  close  of  that  war.  But  if 
Charles  VII  did  not  make  his  own  place,  he  knew  how  to 
occupy  it  when  it  had  been  made  for  him.  The  finances 
were  brought  into  good  condition,  the  army  was  thor- 
oughly organized,  the  state  made  independent  of  the  feu- 
dal levies,  and  the  right  of  the  king  to  impose  taxes  finally 
established. 

The  nobles  did  not  allow  these  concluding  steps  in  the 
progress  to  absolutism  to  be  taken  without  protest  and 
combinations  to  prevent  them,  but  their  greatest  effort, 
under  the  lead  of  princes  of  the  royal  house,  was  made 
•iinder  the  next  king,  Louis  XI,  and  when  he  had  suc- 
ceeded in  breaking  up  the  League  of  the  Public  Weal  the 
last  really  dangerous  resistance  to  the  royal  power  was 
overcome.  Louis  followed  the  same  policy  as  his  father, 
and  at  the  close  of  his  reign  the  absolute  monarchy  was 
complete  in  all  essential  particulars.  A  last  trace  of  in- 
stitutional check  upon  the  legislative  right  of  the  sov- 
ereign remained,  until  a  little  later,  in  the  power  of  the 
supreme  court — the  Parlement — to  reject  a  royal  edict  in 
whole  or  in  part — the  rights  of  registration  and  of  remon- 
strance— and  a  few  other  finishing  touches  to  the  struc- 
ture of  royal  absolutism  were  left  to  be  made  in  the 
sixtee"nth  century  and  by  Richelieu  and  Mazarin.  But 
when  the  king  had  gathered  into  his  hands  the  uncon- 
trolled right  to  legislate,  to  tax,^  and  to  maintain  a  stand- 
ing army,  the  process  of  centralization  was  in  all  essentials 
finished,  and  the  king  was  the  state  as  really  as  in  the 
case  of  Louis  XIV. 

In  the  reign  of  Louis  XI,  also,  territorial  acquisitions 

'  Philip  de  Comines,  writing  in  the  reign  of  Charles  VIII,  recognizes  the 
importance  of  this  point.  He  denies  that  the  king  has  any  right  of  taxa- 
tion without  the  consent  of  those  who  pay,  and  says  that  England  is  the 
best  governed  of  the  countries  of  his  time.     See  especially  Bk.  V,  chap.  XIX. 


330  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

were  begun  again,  the  duchy  of  Burgundy  was  seized  on 
the  death  of  Charles  the  Bold,  and  the  county  of  Pro- 
vence, which  lay,  not  in  France,  but  in  the  old  kingdom 
of  Burgundy,  was  annexed — a  partial  compensation  for 
the  loss  of  Flanders,  which  now  passed  to  the  House  of 
Hapsburg.  In  the  next  reign  the  last  of  the  great  fiefs 
acquired,  Brittany,  was  brought  in  by  the  marriage  of 
Charles  VIII  with  its  heiress. 

But  the  reign  of  Charles  VIII  belongs  really  in  mod- 
ern political  history.  The  ambition  of  the  now  com- 
pletely formed  French  nation  and  of  its  sovereign  for 
foreign  conquests,  and  the  attempt  of  Charles  to  estab- 
lish the  French  in  Italy,  are  its  leading  facts.  Louis  XI 
had  seen  the  rise  of  the  new  interests  and  the  beginning 
of  the  international  combinations  which  were  made  to 
secure  them,  but  he  was  still  so  occupied  with  the  old 
problems  that  he  had  not  been  able  to  take  a  part  in  the 
game  at  all  proportionate  to  the  strength  of  France. 
Now  the  old  problems  were  settled,  so  far  as  they  need 
be,  and  the  new  interests  were  taking  their  place  to  direct 
the  royal  policy. 

In  some  of  the  later  reigns  the  relics  of  the  feudal 
power  were  to  make  new  efforts  to  recover  the  position 
in  the  state  which  they  had  lost,  but  these  efforts  were 
hopeless  from  the  beginning,  and  feudalism  as  a  political 
power  disappeared  with  the  English  wars.  As  a  system 
of  social  rank  and  of  exclusive  legal  privileges  and  ex- 
emptions it  remained  until  the  French  Revolution.  The 
kings  had  carried  on  a  long  contest  with  feudalism,  and 
had  finally  completely  overthrown  it,  but  they  were  not 
hostile  to  a  nobility,  and  freely  bestowed  upon  the  nobles 
pensions  and  titles  and  high  favor  at  court  as  some  com- 
pensation for  the  political  independence  which  had  been 
destroyed.^ 

1  It  must  be  remarked,  also,  as  having  an  important  bearing  on  modem 
French  history,  that,  although  a  national  government  had  been  established 


THE   FORMATION   OF   FRANCE  33 1 

The  purpose  of  this  sketch  has  been  not  so  much  to 
give  an  outline  of  the  institutional  history  of  France 
during  these  centuries  as  to  make  evident,  if  possible, 
how  the  central  government  was  continually  growing  in 
strength  and  the  king  becoming  with  every  generation 
more  and  more  independent  of  the  feudal  nobles  and 
the  real  ruler  of  their  lands. 

It  has  been  given  so  much  more  in  detail  than  the  his- 
tory of  the  other  states  will  be,  not  merely  because  of 
the  important  influence  of  the  absolutism  thus  formed 
upon  all  later  history,  but  also  because  it  is,  to  a  consid- 
erable extent,  typical  of  what  took  place,  sooner  or  later, 
almost  everywhere  upon  the  Continent,  certainly  in  re- 
sults if  not  always  in  processes. 

and  a  national  feeling  created,  still  very  great  differences  remained  between 
the  various  provinces  in  law,  in  methods  of  legislation,  and  in  taxation,  as 
reminders  of  their  original  feudal  separation.  The  differences  between  the 
pays  de  droit  coiitumier  and  the  pays  de  droit  ecrit,  and  between  the  pays 
d'etats  and  the  pays  d^ election  are  examples.  The  existence  of  custom-houses 
along  interior  provincial  boundary  lines  seems  especially  foreign  to  the 
modern  idea  of  a  state.  These  differences  remained,  like  those  of  feudal 
rank,  until  the  Revolution, 


CHAPTER  XIV 

ENGLAND    AND    THE    OTHER    STATES 

Our  brief  sketch  of  English  history  before  the  Nor- 
man conquest  revealed  two  facts  of  the  highest  impor- 
tance in  their  bearing  upon  the  later  English  constitution. 
One  was  that  only  the  slightest  Roman  influence  had 
been  felt  by  the  Saxons,  the  other  that  the  poUtical  feu- 
dal system  of  the  Continent  had  obtained  no  footing  in 
the  island.  Then  followed  the  Norman  conquest,  in  ap- 
pearance the  most  revolutionary  epoch  of  the  medieval 
history  of  England.  But  it  was,  in  truth,  less  revolution- 
ary than  it  seems,  though  a  real  beginning  point  in  some 
lines  of  national  growth. 

The  Norman  conquest  was  less  revolutionary  than  it 
seems  upon  the  surface  because  the  institutions  which  it 
introduced  were  in  the  main  from  the  same  ultimate 
source  as  the  Saxon.  They  were  Frankish,  that  is  Teu- 
tonic, and  except  for  the  feudal  system  Teutonic  not 
seriously  modified  by  the  Roman  institutions  with  which 
they  had  been  in  intimate  relation.  Their  growth  through 
the  time  which  preceded  1066  had  been  along  practically 
the  same  lines  as  the  Saxon  institutional  growth.  They 
had  for  various  reasons  developed  more  rapidly,  so  that 
the  chief  difference  between  the  type  of  government 
which  the  Normans  brought  into  England  and  that  which 
they  found  there  may  be  said  to  be  that  the  latter  was 
in  a  stage  of  development  some  generations  behind  the 
former.  The  practical  result  was  that  the  substitution 
of  the  Norman  general  government  for  the  Saxon  was 

332 


ENGLAND  AND   THE   OTHER   STATES  333 

easily  made  with  no  sense  of  violent  change  and  no  real 
revol  ition.  This  was  true  even  of  political  feudalism, 
the  most  decided  innovation,  because  the  drift  towards 
this  side  of  feudaUsm,  inchoate  and  uncombined  begin- 
nings as  in  commendation  of  land  and  primitive  vassalage, 
made  the  sudden  introduction  of  the  completed  system 
seem  not  illogical  or  revolutionary.  The  same  cir- 
cumstance affected  also  the  opposite  result.  It  was  easy 
in  some  cases  for  the  Normans  to  adopt  a  Saxon  insti- 
tution as  part  of  their  general  arrangements  instead  of 
introducing  something  less  satisfactory  of  their  own.  An 
instance  of  this  kind  is  the  office  of  sherift  for  local  admin- 
istrsHon,  and  probably  also  the  economic  feudal  organi- 
zation, the  manorial  system,  at  least  in  some  features. 
Finally,  the  question  as  to  whether  a  given  institution 
is  of  Norman  or  of  Saxon  origin  is,  for  our  purpose,  of 
little  importance.  In  either  case,  the  ultimate  origin  is 
Teutonic,  and  in  either  case  the  constitutional  result,  the 
value  of  the  institution  to  the  world  at  large,  is  the  value 
given  to  it  by  Englishmen  after  the  conquest. 

The  conquest  brought  into  English  history  two  new 
factors  which  had  most  decided  influence  upon  the  future. 
First,  in  the  place  of  a  weak  king,  personally  weak  and 
almost  overshadowed  by  one  or  two  great  noble  famihes, 
who  threatened  to  bring  about  some  of  the  results  of 
continental  feudahsm,  it  put  a  strong  king,  strong  by  the 
fact  of  conquest,  strong  in  character,  and  strong  in  the 
traditions  and  constitutional  development  of  his  office  in 
Normandy.  This  meant  absolutism  in  the  actual  conduct 
of  the  general  government,  but  for  the  local  institutions  of 
England  it  meant  very  little.  The  body  of  the  Saxon  laws 
remained  in  force  by  the  choice  and  will  of  the  king,  and 
influenced  only  slightly  by  feudalism.  It  was  a  century 
before  the  centralization  which  began  with  the  conquest 
affected  in  any  marked  degree  local  institutions,  particu- 
larly the  shire  courts. 


334  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

In  the  second  place,  the  conquest  introduced  the  po- 
litical feudal  system  into  England;  it  was  not,  hov/ever, 
the  feudal  system  of  France.  It  was  introduced  by  a 
strong  king,  because  it  furnished  the  only  method  for 
the  organization  of  the  general  government  with  which 
he  was  familiar,  but  it  was  introduced  in  such  a  way  that 
the  king  remained  strong  in  comparison  with  his  vassals, 
because  of  those  characteristics  of  Norman  feudaUsm 
which  have  been  specified  in  Chapter  VIII.  As  one 
consequence  there  was  in  England  no  great  baron  occupy- 
ing such  a  position  of  independence  as  the  duke  of  Nor- 
mandy, or  the  duke  of  Aquitaine,  or  even  the  count  of 
Anjou,  occupied  in  France.  As  another  consequence  the 
feudal  system  never  took  the  place  of  an  inefficient  national 
government  and  exercised  locally  its  functions  in  England, 
and  the  results  which  the  opposite  fact  produced  in  France 
and  Germany  never  appeared  there.  Only  for  a  brief 
time,  under  a  weak  and  insecure  king,  Stephen,  did  the 
feudal  lords  usurp  powers  of  the  general  government, 
coining  money  and  freely  waging  private  war,  and  give 
the  English  a  short  experience  of  conditions  famiUar  to 
their  neighbors  on  the  mainland. 

Another  result  of  the  introduction  of  the  feudal  system 
was  to  create  a  more  definitely  organized  body  of  nobles 
than  had  existed  before,  no  one  of  whom  perhaps  equalled 
in  power  the  Godwin  family  of  Edward  the  Confessor's 
time,  but  who  were,  as  a  body,  stronger  than  the  body 
of  Saxon  nobles.  For  the  moment  this  fact  had  no  re- 
sults. The  barons  had  first  to  learn  a  lesson  foreign  to 
their  class  anywhere  else  in  the  world  of  that  time,  the 
lesson  of  combination  with  one  another  and  with  the 
middle  class,  before  they  could  begin  to  stand  successfully 
against  the  superior  might  of  the  king.  This  is  a  fact  of 
great  significance  in  relation  to  the  different  roads  taken 
by  French  and  English  history.  The  French  baron  was 
so  placed  that  he  could  hope  to  secure  independence,  and 


ENGLAND   AND   THE   OTHER   STATES  335 

naturally  this  was  the  object  which  he  sought.  This  led 
him  into  opposition  not  merely  to  the  government  but 
also  to  others  of  his  own  order  who  were  in  some  sense 
his  rivals,  and  consequently  combinations  among  the 
barons  against  the  king  are  less  common  in  French  his- 
tory, and  when  they  occur  have  more  of  a  personal  and 
less  of  a  public  character.  The  English  baron,  however, 
having  no  hope  of  establishing  by  himself  an  independent 
principality,  learned  to  seek  the  aid  of  others  against  the 
power  of  the  king,  and  as  he  was  successful,  went  on 
gradually,  not  to  independence,  but  to  an  increasing  pop- 
ularizing of  the  general  government  of  the  state,  the  form 
which  a  reduction  of  the  royal  power  necessarily  took  in 
England. 

This  was  a  lesson,  however,  which  was  only  slowly 
learned.  Not  until  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  had  elapsed 
from  the  date  of  the  conquest  was  the  formation  of  the 
English  constitution  really  taken  in  hand.  The  Norman 
and  the  first  Angevin  kings  were  to  all  intents  absolute 
monarchs.  Such  forms  of  a  more  popular  government  as 
continued  locally  in  operation  furnished  no  real  check  upon 
their  action.  Nor  did  the  rights  of  the  barons  as  against 
the  king  which  the  feudal  law  recognized.  Taxation,  such 
as  there  was,  was  practically  at  their  will.  There  was  no 
legislative  assembly  which  survived  apart  from  their  feu- 
dal court,  and  there  was  no  legislation  except  their  own. 
Lawyers  trained  in  the  Roman  law  did  not  hesitate  to 
declare,  here  as  on  the  Continent,  that  the  will  of  the 
prince  was  valid  law.  Slight  signs  of  resistance  had  not 
been  wanting,  among  the  barons  of  resistance  to  the 
king's  absolute  power  over  them,  among  the  middle  class 
on  account  of  oppressive  extortion  of  money,  as  under 
Richard  I.  But  these  were  isolated  cases  and  led  to  no 
definite  results.  The  history  of  organized  and  self-con- 
scious opposition  to  the  king,  embodying  its  results  in 
constitutional  documents  to  which  clear  appeal  could  be 


336  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

made  against  the  sovereign,  and  whose  enforcement 
marked  out  a  consistent  poHcy  from  generation  to  gen- 
eration— the  history,  in  other  words,  of  the  formation  of 
the  constitutional,  or  limited  monarchy,  opened  in  the 
reign  of  King  John,  and  recorded  the  results  of  the  first 
victory  in  Magna  Carta. 

It  was  in  all  probability  nothing  more  than  the  selfish 
wish  of  the  barons  to  protect  themselves  against  the 
abuse  of  power  by  the  king,  and  to  gain  as  much  for 
themselves  as  they  could,  which  influenced  them  in  their 
rebellion  against  John.  They  did  not  have — it  would 
not  have  been  possible  for  them  to  have  had — any  such 
motive  before  them  as  was  before  the  leaders  of  the  re- 
sistance to  the  Stuarts  in  the  seventeenth  century,  nor 
were  they  led  by  any  hereditary  influence  from  the  spirit 
or  practice  of  liberty  of  earlier  generations.  So  far  as 
spirit  and  wish  of  theirs  are  concerned,  they  would  have 
preferred  the  results  which  were  sought  by  the  barons  of 
France  and  Germany,  and  would  have  used  their  victory 
to  reach  such  ends  if  circumstances  had  not  made  them 
impossible.  As  it  was,  they  included  incidentally  in  the 
guarantees  demanded  of  the  king  in  the  statement  of 
their  own  feudal  rights,  also  principles  affecting  the  peo- 
ple at  large  and  more  directly  bearing  upon  popular  liberty, 
or  at  least  principles  which  could  at  a  later  time  be  so 
interpreted.  Many  of  these  guarantees  were  the  formula- 
tion of  old  principles  and  practices,  but  the  relation  of 
Magna  Carta  to  the  future  is  far  more  important  than  its 
relation  to  the  past.  And  yet,  in  relation  to  the  future, 
it  was  suggestion  and  germ  rather  than  a  clear  concep- 
tion even  of  important  institutions  then  beginning  to  form. 

According  to  the  interpretation  long  prevalent,  five 
fundamental  principles  of  present  Anglo-Saxon  liberty 
were  contained  in  Magna  Carta.  These  were,  the  right 
to  trial  by  jury,  the  principle  of  the  habeas  corpus,  the 
illegality  of  taxes  not  consented  to  by  the  nation's  rep- 


ENGLAND   AND   THE   OTHER   STATES  337 

resentatives,  fixed  places  of  meeting  for  the  courts  of 
common  pleas,  and  the  principle,  to  put  it  in  the  words 
of  its  latest  and  somewhat  more  general  formulation,  that 
no  person  shall  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  property 
without  due  process  of  law.  But  such  an  interpretation 
reads  into  the  document,  upon  some  of  these  points,  a 
meaning  derived  from  later  history,  and  yet,  in  one  sense, 
not  incorrectly.  In  studying  the  Great  Charter  as  a  his- 
torical document,  it  is  necessary  to  have  regard  to  what 
its  provisions  meant  to  those  who  drew  them  up.  But, 
whatever  this  may  have  been,  it  does  not  exhaust  the 
meaning  of  Magna  Carta  as  an  influence  in  the  growth  of 
English  liberty.  It  was  not  many  generations  before  the 
progress  of  events,  of  which  it  was  the  starting  point,  made 
its  clauses  appear  to  contain  a  meaning  foreign  to  the 
minds  of  its  contemporaries,  and  when  this  occurred,  its 
weighty  sanction  was  a  real  force  in  the  establishment 
and  protection  of  the  institutions  which,  it  was  believed, 
had  been  intended.  Trial  by  jury,  in  the  later  sense,  as 
a  means  of  protecting  the  individual,  is  not  in  Magna 
Carta.  It  could  not  well  have  been  there,  for  the  jury 
was  then  only  just  beginning  to  be  formed,  and  had  not 
yet  reached  an  importance,  or  indeed  a  use,  which  would 
have  justified  its  insertion  in  a  document  of  this  sort. 
The  "judgment  of  his  peers"  referred  to  is  the  judgment 
of  the  feudal  court  or  of  the  community  of  freemen,  once 
common  to  the  popular  courts  of  all  the  German  states, 
and  from  them  passing  to  the  later  forms  of  courts  every- 
where. The  words  used  in  the  charter,  judicium  parium, 
are  not  infrequent  in  the  feudal  documents  of  the  Conti- 
nent. And  yet  the  "judgment  of  his  peers'*'  came  soon 
to  mean  to  every  Englishman  trial  by  jury,  and  Magna 
Carta  seemed  to  secure  to  him  that  right.  And  justly 
so,  for  the  bearing  of  the  practice  which  it  did  guarantee 
upon  liberty  is  identical  with  that  of  the  jury  system, 
which  took  its  place.     So,  again,  in  the  matter  of  the 


338  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

consent  to  taxation.  The  practice,  in  its  later  form,  is 
not  referred  to  in  Magna  Carta,  either  in  the  matter  of 
the  consent  or  of  the  taxation.  The  reference  is  again 
to  feudal  law,  to  the  recognized  right  of  the  vassal  to 
give  his  consent  to  any  extraordinary  '"aid,"  that  is,  to 
any  aid  besides  the  three  regular  ones  specified  in  the 
charter,  before  he  could  legally  be  compelled  to  pay  it. 
But  here  again  the  principle  is  involved,  and  later  ideas 
extended  Magna  Carta  to  cover  the  new  practice.  In  re- 
gard to  the  other  three  points  relating  to  the  administra- 
tion of  justice,  the  original  meaning  of  the  Great  Charter 
is  more  closely  in  harmony  with  the  later  ideas,  though 
put  in  a  more  special  and  narrower  way.  In  general, 
Magna  Carta  holds  rightly  the  great  place  which  is  given 
it  in  the  history  of  civil  liberty.  It  gave  a  solemn  sanc- 
tion and  a  definite  statement,  to  which  appeal  could  ever 
afterwards  be  made,  to  certain  most  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  liberty,  much  wider  in  their  application  than  its 
framers  knew,  and  by  establishing  the  principle  that 
there  is  a  body  of  law  by  which  the  king  is  bound  and 
which  he  may  be  forced  to  keep,  it  gave  direction  towards 
the  securing  of  national  rights  to  nearly  every  subsequent 
case  of  insurrection  against  the  sovereign  in  English  his- 
tory. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  follow  step  by  step  the 
familiar  historical  events  which  were  associated  with  the 
growth  of  the  English  constitution.  It  will  answer  our 
purpose  if  we  can  obtain  an  idea  of  the  amount  of  prog- 
ress which  had  been  made  by  the  close  of  the  middle 
ages  in  the  work  of  transforming  the  monarchy  of  William 
the  Conqueror  into  the  virtual  republic  of  to-day,  and  of 
the  institutional  forms  in  which  the  results  had  been  em- 
bodied. 

The  English  constitution  at  the  close  of  the  middle 
ages,  as  at  the  present  time,  comprised  two  distinct  kinds 
of  institutions,  each  essential  in  its  way  to  the  general 


ENGLAND   AND   THE   OTHER   STATES  339 

result.  First  were  institutions  of  a  negative  character, 
intended  to  protect  the  individual  from  the  arbitrary 
displeasure  of  the  executive.  Such  were  the  jury,  the 
principle  of  the  habeas  corpus,  and  the  statutory  def- 
initions of  treason.  The  second  were  institutions  which 
may  be  called  positive  in  character,  whose  object  was  to 
give  to  the  representatives  of  the  nation  some  power  to 
check  the  public  actions  of  the  king  and  some  share  in 
the  operations  of  the  government.  Examples  of  these 
are,  impeachment  and  the  principle  that  the  consent  of 
the  House  of  Commons  is  necessary  to  the  vahdity  of  a 
statute.  National  consent  to  taxation  is  a  matter  that 
lies  midway  between  the  two  and  partakes  of  the  nature 
of  both.  Demanded  at  first  as  a  protection  of  the  in- 
dividual against  the  executive,  and  always  serving  that 
end,  it  became  also  the  most  effective  means  of  increas- 
ing the  share  of  the  nation  in  the  control  of  public  affairs. 
Certainly  civil  liberty  could  not  exist  at  all  without  the 
institutions  of  the  first  class,  as  a  little  study  of  contem- 
porary Russia  will  make  clear,  nor  could  any  great  prog- 
ress be  made  towards  a  republican  constitution  without 
those  of  the  second. 

As  occup>'ing  a  midway  position  between  the  two 
kinds  of  institutions  mentioned  above,  the  right  of  self- 
taxation  is  first  to  be  considered.  The  most  obstinate 
and  long-continued  struggle,  also,  of  this  period  of  En- 
ghsh  history  was  over  this  right,  and  Englishmen  in  all 
parts  of  the  world  have  always  considered  it  the  most 
fundamental  principle  of  their  constitution.  If  the  exec- 
utive can  provide  a  large  enough  revenue  to  meet  his 
needs,  independently  of  the  nation,  he  is  independent  in 
everything  else,  and  can  do  what  he  pleases.  This  strug- 
gle, when  looked  at  as  a  whole,  may  have  the  appearance 
of  a  succession  of  special  cases  rather  than  of  the  follow- 
ing of  a  definite  purpose,  but  the  cases  are  as  decisive 
in  the  current  of  historical  events  as  the  principle  is  in 


340  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  constitution,  and  both  sides  saw  what  was  involved 
clearly  enough  to  make  the  contest  obstinate  and  pro- 
tracted. 

At  the  time  of  Magna  Carta,  taxation  had  just  entered 
the  transition  period  between  the  feudal  methods  of  aids 
and  tallages,  and  the  more  regular  methods  of  modern 
times.  Into  the  history  of  this  transition  we  cannot 
enter,  the  essential  fact  is  that  the  principle  of  consent 
was  an  extension  to  a  more  general  tax  of  the  feudal 
principle,  that  the  consent  of  the  vassal  must  be  obtained 
to  an  extraordinary  aid.  The  feudal  relation  was  a  con- 
tract with  definite  specifications.  Neither  party  to  the 
contract  had  any  right  to  enlarge  those  specifications  to 
his  advantage  without  the  consent  of  the  other,  and  the 
point  was  carefully  guarded  wherever  possible  in  a  mat- 
ter of  such  importance  in  feudal  days  as  the  payment  of 
money.  When  national  taxation  began  to  be  possible, 
towards  the  close  of  the  feudal  age,  its  introduction  was 
rendered  easier  by  the  application  to  it  of  this  feudal 
principle;  indeed  that  was  the  only  natural  thing  to  do, 
and  such  an  application  of  it  was  by  no  means  peculiar 
to  England.  As  feudal  taxation  anywhere  broadened 
into  modern  taxation,  the  principle  of  consent  tended  to 
broaden  with  it.  That  which  was  peculiar  to  England 
was  that  the  early  establishment  of  the  principle  made 
it  the  great  weapon  in  the  hands  of  the  acting  force  of 
the  nation  to  compel  the  sovereign  to  grant  almost  every- 
thing else. 

It  was  the  financial  necessities  of  John's  son,  Henry 
III,  which  forced  him  to  submit  to  the  plan  of  govern- 
ment embodied  by  the  barons  in  the  Provisions  of  Ox- 
ford, in  1258.  This  was  a  plan  for  the  conduct  of  affairs 
by  committees  of  Parliament,  which  was  a  peculiar  fore- 
shadowing of  the  present  English  system,  though  not  a 
direct  ancestor  of  it,  but  which  was  fortunately  prema- 
ture;   fortunately  because  no  middle  class  of  large  po- 


ENGLAND   AND   THE    OTHER    STATES  34I 

litical  influence  had  at  that  time  been  formed,  and  gov- 
ernment by  committees  of  Parliament,  if  successfully  es- 
tablished, would  have  ended  in  a  narrow  oligarchy.  The 
attempt  of  the  king  to  free  himself  from  this  control  led 
to  the  famous  struggle  with  Simon  de  Montfort,  and  to 
the  Parliament  of  1265,  in  which  representatives  from 
the  boroughs  made  their  appearance  for  the  first  time 
with  the  knights  of  the  shire,  who  had  begun  to  repre- 
sent the  counties  in  Parliament  a  few  years  earlier.  The 
military  victory  of  the  king  over  the  barons  was  com- 
plete, but  it  was  followed  by  a  formal  recognition  on  his 
part  of  those  points  among  their  demands  which  did  not 
involve  an  immediate  limitation  of  the  king's  freedom  of 
action. 

Thirty  years  later  there  was  another  contest  between 
the  king,  now  Edward  I,  and  the  barons,  certainly  as 
factious  on  the  part  of  the  latter  as  any  in  the  series,  but 
involving  the  question  of  taxation,  and  closed  by  a  new 
and  full  agreement  by  the  king  to  observe  the  provisions 
of  the  Great  Charter.  The  agreement  not  to  tax  without 
consent  was  now  so  explicitly  made  by  the  king,  there  had 
been  so  many  precedents  established  of  taxation  by  ex- 
pressed consent  that  the  principle  may  be  said  to  be  finally 
accepted  by  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Edward  I,  that  only 
those  taxes  were  legal  which  had  been  granted  by  the 
nation.  Hereafter  the  sovereign  might  attempt  to  escape 
by  some  form  of  evasion  from  the  limitation  placed  upon 
him,  but  when  brought  face  to  face  with  the  question  he 
necessarily  admitted  the  principle. 

Hardly  had  this  point  been  gained  when  Parliament 
advanced  another  step,  almost  as  important,  in  the  his- 
torical sequence.  In  1309  they  voted  a  tax  for  the  bene- 
fit of  King  Edward  II,  on  the  condition  that  certain  abuses, 
which  they  specified,  should  be  reformed,  and  the  king 
was  obliged  to  consent.  This  precedent  was  not  followed 
for  a  generation,  but  the  long  war  with  France,  which 


342  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

began  about  1340,  made  the  sovereign  more  dependent 
than  ever  upon  the  grants  of  Parliament  and  the  prac- 
tice of  attaching  conditions  to  votes  of  money  began  in 
earnest.^  Edward  III  was  compelled  to  acknowledge  the 
illegality  of  various  forms  of  taxation  by  which  the  prin- 
ciple of  consent  had  been  evaded,  or  for  which,  in  earlier 
times,  it  had  not  been  necessary.  Under  Richard  II  the 
Parliament  began  to  ask  how  the  money  granted  had 
been  used,  and  to  specify  the  purposes  to  v/hich  it  should 
be  applied.  Henry  IV,  the  first  Lancastrian,  held  the 
throne  by  a  Parhamentary  title,  and  he  allowed,  if  he 
did  not  always  definitel}^  recognize,  the  right  of  Parlia- 
ment to  attach  conditions  to  votes  of  taxes,  to  require 
the  redress  of  abuses  before  the  taxes  were  voted,  to 
direct  the  general  use  to  be  made  of  the  money,  and  to 
require  an  account  of  it,  and  these  points  were  still 
further  secured  before  the  end  of  the  century.  With  the 
definite  estabHshment  of  these  rights  the  control  of  Par- 
Hament  over  taxation  was  complete.  It  was  not  yet 
complete  beyond  the  possibility  of  question  or  evasion. 
It  had  still  to  pass  through  the  Stuart  period  before  that 
point  was  reached.  But  in  the  legal  recognition  of  all 
the  principles  involved  it  was  complete  before  the  ac- 
cession of  the  House  of  Tudor. 

The  increasing  power  of  Parliament  over  taxation  is 
only  one  form  of  its  increasing  power  in  the  general  gov- 

1  The  French  possessions  of  the  English  were  of  great  assistance  to  the 
growth  of  liberty  from  the  fact  that  they  involved  the  sovereigns  in  affairs 
on  the  Continent  which  seemed  to  them  of  as  great,  and  sometimes  of  greater, 
importance  than  those  of  their  English  kingdom,  while  the  nation,  and 
even  the  great  barons  of  Norman  origin,  had  but  little  interest  in  them. 
The  baron  was  ready  to  refuse  all  aid  to  the  king  unless  satisfied  upon  the 
point  especially  near  to  him,  his  rights  at  home;  the  king  was  ready  to  com- 
promise on  the  demands  of  the  barons  if  he  could  get  their  help  in  France. 
The  French  possessions  were  lost  when  they  had  ceased  to  be  of  use  in 
domestic  politics,  and  when  the  growth  of  international  rivalries  would  have 
made  a  continental  position  of  great  disadvantage  to  the  cause  of  the  En- 
glish people. 


ENGLAND   AND   THE    OTHER   STATES  343 

ernment  of  the  country,  and  leads  us  directly  to  a  con- 
sideration of  the  share  of  the  nation  in  the  control  of 
public  affairs  at  the  beginning  of  modern  history.  The 
primary  fact  in  this  direction,  upon  which  nearly  all  the 
rest  was  founded,  was  the  composition  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  This  was  determined  by  a  fact  which  dis- 
tinguishes  the  England  of  the  later  middle  ages  from  all 
other  European  countries — the  existence  of  a  land  own- 
ing middle  class,  of  a  class  the  great  majority  of  whom 
would  have  ranked  with  the  nobles  in  any  continental 
state,  and  would  have  insisted  upon  their  rank  and  privi- 
leges with  especial  strictness,  but  who,  in  England,  found 
themselves  more  nearly  allied  in  interests  and  desires 
with  the  Third  Estate  than  with  the  great  barons.  This 
union  was  due  to  a  variety  of  causes,  prominent  among 
which  was  the  county  organization,  in  which  it  had 
long  existed.  It  was  the  county  organization,  also,  which 
very  possibly  suggested  the  principle  and  the  method  of 
representation,  the  representation  first  of  the  counties  by 
the  knights  of  the  shire,  and  then  of  the  boroughs  in 
1265.  The  composition  of  Parliament  in  these  respects 
was  finally  fixed  by  the  ''model  Parliament"  of  1295,  in 
which  the  representatives  of  the  towns  appeared,  con- 
stitutionally summoned  now  by  the  king,  not  by  a  rev- 
olutionary leader.  The  great  result  which  followed  from 
the  union  of  the  knights  with  the  burgesses  was  that  no 
Third  Estate  existed  in  England  in  the  same  sense  as  in 
the  other  countries  of  the  time.  The  House  of  Commons 
could  easily  represent  not  a  class  but  the  nation,  and  this 
was  increasingly  the  case  as  time  went  on.  This  union 
in  the  Commons  was  rendered  easier  and  more  complete 
by  the  fact,  peculiar  also  to  England,  that  all  the  mem- 
bers of  a  noble  family,  except  the  one  actually  holding 
the  title,  came  to  be  in  law  commoners  and  early  joined 
the  House  of  Commons.  The  fact  also  that  the  clergy  as 
a  body  withdrew  from  Parliament,  some  members  of  the 


344  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

order  only  attending  the  House  of  Lords  in  their  capac- 
ity as  barons,  should  not  be  overlooked.  The  alliance  of 
the  English  nobility  with  the  Commons  in  the  struggle 
for  liberty  was  determined  not  merely  by  the  fact  that 
the  barons  were  so  placed  that  they  needed  allies  against 
the  king,  but  also  by  the  fact  that  the  English  Commons 
was  a  far  more  influential  and  powerful  body  than  any 
contemporary  Third  Estate. 

As  Parliament  increased  its  power  there  increased  also, 
step  by  step,  the  weight  and  authority  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  That  process,  which  is  so  marked  a  feature 
of  English  history  in  modern  times,  by  which  the  House 
of  Commons  has  gradually  drawn  into  its  hands  the  whole 
government  of  the  country,  begins  within  less  than  a 
century  after  the  model  Parliament,  almost  immediately, 
in  fact,  after  the  definite  separation  of  the  lower  house  as 
a  distinct  body,  before  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, and  it  was  clearly  on  the  road  to  completion  before 
the  events  of  the  Tudor  and  Stuart  reigns  interrupted 
the  regular  development  for  a  time. 

By  a  series  of  precedents,  beginning  in  the  reign  of 
Edward  III,  the  Commons  had  secured  the  recognition 
of  the  principle  that  their  consent  was  necessary  to  the 
validity  of  a  law,  and  that  no  changes  should  be  made 
in  the  wording  of  a  law  after  its  adoption  by  Parliament. 
Beginning  from  the  same  time,  they  had  established  their 
right  to  inquire  into  abuses  in  the  administration  of  the 
public  business,  and  to  hold  the  king's  ministers  to  trial 
and  punishment  for  their  misconduct  by  an  impeach- 
ment conducted  by  themselves.  The  great  principle 
necessarily  involved  in  this,  that,  since  the  king  can  do 
no  wrong,  all  misconduct  in  the  administration  must  be 
due  to  his  ministers,  who  can  be  brought  to  account  and 
punished  without  civil  war  or  revolution,  was  not  put  into 
any  explicit  shape,  as  a  recognized  constitutional  doctrine, 
until  the  latter  part  of  the  Stuart  period;    but  the  foun- 


ENGLAND   AND   THE    OTHER   STATES  345 

dation  for  it  was  laid  in  the  reign  of  Richard  II.  Finally, 
it  was  a  very  important  precedent  which  was  made  by 
Parliament,  though  without  any  very  definite  idea  of  its 
meaning,  in  the  deposition  of  Edward  II,  in  1327.  By 
the  deposition  of  Richard  II,  in  1399,  this  precedent  was 
made  stronger,  and  the  fundamental  principle,  by  which 
alone  a  revolution  of  the  sort  can  be  justified,  was  made 
more  evident.  For  the  thing  which  made  the  nation 
turn  against  Richard  II  was  not  the  wrongs  which  Henry 
of  Lancaster  had  suffered,  but  the  king's  violent  disre- 
gard of  their  constitutional  liberties.  The  principle  that 
the  king  must  govern  according  to  the  law^s,  as  a  develop- 
ment of  the  fundamental  idea  of  Magna  Carta,  was  al- 
ready fixed  in  public  consciousness  before  the  War  of  the 
Roses  began. 

The  age  of  the  Tudors,  which  followed,  was,  however, 
a  time  of  great  danger  for  popular  government.  The 
near  remembrance  of  a  long  civil  war,  the  weakening  of 
the  old  nobility,  the  accession  of  a  brilliant  king  with 
popular  graces  and  a  strong  will,  a  revolution  in  one 
department  of  the  public  life,  the  church,  which  tended 
to  increase  the  royal  power,  all  things  combined  to  make 
the  danger  serious  that  England  would  be  turned  into 
the  path  which  the  continental  states  were  following, 
and  the  king  become  absolute.  Had  Henry  VIII  really 
cared  for  such  a  result,  it  is  difficult  to  say  what  the  out- 
come would  have  been.  But  the  Parliamentary  title  of 
their  house  to  the  throne,  together  with  the  long  experi- 
ence of  the  kings  in  being  held  to  the  law,  was  probably 
more  decisive  than  indifference  or  absorption  in  something 
else  in  keeping  the  Tudors  in  the  main  faithful  to  the  forms 
of  law,  notwithstanding  their  practical  despotism.  When 
another  family  succeeded  to  the  throne,  with  less  hold 
upon  the  nation,  the  complementary  principle  was  made 
a  part  of  the  constitution,  more  clearly  and  consciously 
than  before,  though  not  without  a  strong  party  against  it, 


346  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

that,  if  the  king  will  not  obey  the  law,  the  penalty  is  the 
loss  of  the  throne.  The  sovereign  has  never  since  denied 
that  he  holds  his  place  by  the  will  of  the  people.  The 
revolutions  of  the  seventeenth  century  had  for  their  result, 
indeed,  but  little  if  anything  more  than  to  render  explicit, 
and  beyond  the  possibility  of  further  dispute,  the  points 
already  established  in  principle  before  the  accession  of 
the  Tudors.  The  growth  of  the  English  constitution  in  the 
two  hundred  years  since  1688  seems  rapid  and  large  as 
compared  with  the  four  centuries  from  William  I  to 
Henry  VII;  but  in  reality,  except  in  one  point,  the  growth 
of  democracy,  the  progress  of  the  past  two  centuries  has 
consisted  in  devising  machinery  for  applying  the  princi- 
ples gained  by  1485  and  finally  fixed  by  the  failure  of  the 
Stuarts  to  overthrow  them,  to  more  and  more  of  the  details 
of  the  government,  as  in  the  formation  of  the  cabinet,  for 
example,  and  in  the  control  by  the  ministry  of  the  nation's 
foreign  poHcy. 

For  the  protection  of  the  individual  the  institution 
which  was  most  nearly  in  its  present  form  at  the  close  of 
the  middle  ages  was  the  jury,  though  the  especially  fa- 
mous cases  of  its  use  against  the  executive  were  still  to 
occur.  The  primitive  institution,  out  of  which  the  jury 
grew,  was  brought  into  England  by  the  Normans,  who 
had  themselves  derived  it  from  the  Franks.  In  its  early 
form  the  jury  was  a  body  of  men  chosen  from  among 
those  who  were  supposed  to  have  a  personal  knowledge 
of  the  matter,  to  whom  was  submitted,  under  oath,  the 
question  as  to  the  facts  in  any  case  which  might  arise 
in  administrative  or  executive  matters,  the  assessment 
of  taxes,  for  example,  or  of  fines,  as  in  clause  twenty 
of  Magna  Carta.  This  practice  came  into  use  in  the 
king's  courts,  as  distinguished  from  the  county  courts,  for 
the  settlement  of  disputes  concerning  the  possession  and 
ownership  of  lands,  and  was  recognized  in  the  laws  under 
Henry  11.     From  this  time  the  development  of  the  insti- 


ENGLAND   AXD   THE   OTHER   STATES  347 

tution  was  rapid,  more  slow  in  criminal  than  in  civil  cases, 
and  the  jury  gradually  advanced  from  depending  upon 
their  own  knowledge  of  the  facts  concerned  to  taking  into 
account  evidence  submitted  to  them.  The  jury  system 
secures  two  points  which  are  of  great  value  for  individual 
liberty.  The  first  is  the  right  of  the  citizens  themselves 
to  decide  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  the  accused,  in  view,  if 
the  case  seems  to  demand  it,  of  general  considerations 
rather  than  of  the  special  evidence.^  This  is  a  right  of 
the  utmost  importance  in  the  trial  of  political  offenders,  on 
charges  either  of  technical  violation  of  existing  laws  or  of 
constructive  or  pretended  offences.  The  second  is  the 
fact  that,  by  the  use  of  the  jury,  the  judge  occupies  a 
position  of  impartiality  in  a  criminal  trial,  as,  in  a  sort, 
an  umpire  between  the  parties,  and  is  not  directly  inter- 
ested in  ascertaining  the  facts,  as  in  the  French  criminal 
practice,  for  instance,  where  the  judge  is  almost  a  legal- 
ized inquisitor,  and  the  accused  is  subjected  to  a  judicial 
examination,  which,  however  carefully  it  may  be  guarded, 
seems  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  mind  a  serious  evil.^     Neither 

^  Interesting  instances  of  the  application  of  this  principle  are  to  be  found 
in  recent  American  experience,  in  cases  where  juries  have  acquitted  persons 
brought  to  trial  for  the  violation  of  local  liquor  laws,  against  the  most  con- 
clusive and  notorious  evidence  because  the  laws  did  not  have  the  sanction 
of  the  community. 

So  thoroughly  established  does  our  civil  liberty  seem  to  us,  so  little  do 
we  fear  any  encroachment  upon  it  by  the  executive,  that  the  popular  con- 
sciousness has  almost  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  jury  system  is  one  of 
the  most  important  institutions  by  which  our  liberty  is  secured.  The  ad- 
vocates who  arise  periodically  in  favor  of  its  abolition,  because  of  the  abuses 
to  which  it  has  lent  itself  in  the  enforcement  of  the  laws,  seem  rarely  to 
have  any  knowledge  of  its  history.  Indeed,  it  must  be  admitted  that 
against  what  may  be  the  danger  of  the  future,  the  tyranny  of  a  democracy, 
the  jury  is  anything  but  a  protection. 

2  In  America  we  seem  to  be  in  some  danger  of  destroying  imconsciously 
this  safeguard  of  liberty  in  the  growing  use  of  what  is  called  the  police 
"third  degree."  In  this  thoroughly  un- Anglo-Saxon  examination  of  sus- 
pected persons,  not  merely  policemen  but  elected  ofiicers  of  the  courts  have 
sometimes  taken  part,  and  processes  have  been  said  to  be  used  which  at 
least  border  closely  upon  torture. 


348  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

of  these  points  was  clearly  fixed  in  the  English  practice 
at  the  close  of  the  middle  ages.  The  beginning  had  been 
made  in  the  definite  organization  of  the  jury  system,  of 
which  these  were  to  be  the  necessary  conclusions,  but  it 
was  reserved  for  later  times  to  draw  them  clearly.  In 
fact,  the  independence  of  the  judge,  from  executive  inter- 
ference, as  well  as  his  independence  in  the  process  of 
trial,  was  the  most  important  specific  element  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  liberty  not  distinctly  foreshadowed  in  medieval 
times. 

Other  rights  of  individual  liberty,  secured  by  1485, 
cannot  be  better  stated  than  in  the  words  of  Hallam,  at 
the  beginning  of  his  Constitutional  History.  He  says: 
"No  man  could  be  committed  to  prison  but  by  a  legal 
warrant  specif 5dng  his  ojEfence;  and  by  a  usage  nearly 
tantamount  to  constitutional  right,  he  must  be  speedily 
brought  to  trial  by  means  of  regular  sessions  of  gaol-de- 
livery. The  fact  of  guilt  or  innocence,  on  a  criminal 
charge,  was  determined  in  a  public  court,  and  in  the 
county  where  the  offence  Was  alleged  to  have  occurred, 
by  a  jury  of  twelve  men,  from  whose  unanimous  verdict 
no  appeal  could  be  made.  Civil  rights,  so  far  as  they 
depended  on  questions  of  fact,  were  subject  to  the  same 
decision.  The  officers  and  servants  of  the  crown,  vio- 
lating the  personal  liberty  or  other  right  of  the  subject, 
might  be  sued  in  an  action  for  damages  to  be  assessed 
by  a  jury,  or,  in  some  cases,  were  Kable  to  criminal  proc- 
ess; nor  could  they  plead  any  warrant  or  command  in 
their  justification,  nor  even  the  direct  order  of  the  king." 

To  this  should  be  added  the  fact  that  by  a  law  of  Ed- 
ward III,  in  1352,  the  judicial  punishment  of  treason 
had  been  limited  to  certain  definitely  specified  cases,  a 
safeguard  for  the  individual  of  as  great  importance 
against  a  democracy  as  against  a  monarchy.  The  En- 
glish law  has  not  greatly  improved  upon  this  ancient 
statute,  but  the  American  has  gone  much  further  in  the 


ENGLAND   AND   THE   OTHER   STATES  349 

same  direction  in  the  clause  of  the  Constitution  on  the 
subject  which  marks  out  very  strict  Hmitations  both  of 
definition  and  of  trial. 

England  was  by  no  means  a  republic  at  the  close  of  the 
fifteenth  century.  Much  had  yet  to  be  done  before  that 
end  was  reached,  but  the  work  of  converting  it  into  a 
republic  was  well  under  way,  and,  as  compared  with  any 
of  the  other  states  of  the  time,  of  equal  size  or  promise, 
it  entirely  justifies  the  remark  of  Philip  de  Comines,  cited 
in  the  last  chapter,^  or  the  words  of  Sir  John  Fortescue, 
written  under  Henry  VI,  and  so  often  quoted:  "A  king 
of  England  cannot,  at  his  pleasure,  make  any  alterations 
in  the  laws  of  the  land.  .  .  .  He  is  appointed  to  protect 
his  subjects  in  their  lives,  properties,  and  laws;  for  this 
very  end  and  purpose  he  has  the  delegation  of  power  from 
the  people,  and  he  has  no  just  claim  to  any  other  power 
but  this." 

With  the  close  of  the  Hohenstaufen  period  in  German 
history  the  power  of  the  central  government  had  almost 
totally  disappeared,  and  the  complete  sovereignty  and 
independence  of  the  feudal  subdivisions  of  the  state  were 
practically  established  if  not  legally  recognized.  The 
period  of  twenty  years  which  followed,  known  as  the 
Great  Interregnum,  during  which  there  was  only  the 
merest  shadow  of  a  general  government — the  nominal 
sovereignty  in  the  hands  of  foreigners,  who,  if  they  vis- 
ited Germany  at  all,  did  so  only  for  parade,  and  every 
local  ruler  laying  his  hands  upon  what  he  pleased  that 
was  within  his  reach — completed  the  process  of  dissolu- 
tion, if  it  needed  completion. 

The  policy  which  the  electors  definitely  adopted,  and 

continued  in  operation  through  the  age  which  follows  the 

Interregnum,  is  equivalent  to  an  official  declaration  that 

this  dissolution  was  complete.     In  electing  an  emperor 

'  See  p.  329,  note. 


35c  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

they  selected,  so  far  as  possible,  a  candidate  from  a  family 
having  but  scanty  resources  and  small  power  of  its  own, 
and  they  changed  from  one  family  to  another  as  often  as 
circumstances  would  permit.  Rudolf  of  Hapsburg,  Adolf 
of  Nassau,  Henry  of  Luxemburg,  and  Lewis  of  Bavaria 
are  all  examples  of  this  policy.  It  was  manifestly  the 
result  of  a  united  judgment  on  the  part  of  the  electors, 
almost  formally  expressed,  that  if  a  real  national  govern- 
ment was  ever  to  be  reconstructed,  and  a  centralization 
established  like  that  which  was  forming  in  France,  it  must 
be  done  by  the  independent  family  resources  of  the  em- 
peror. It  could  not  be  done,  in  their  judgment,  by  the 
use  of  the  sovereign  rights  and  prerogatives  which  re- 
mained to  the  imperial  office.  The  emperor's  power  as 
sovereign,  in  its  actual  condition,  was  not  to  be  feared; 
the  only  source  of  danger  to  their  position  was  the  fact 
that  his  personal  power  might  be  great  enough  to  lead 
him  to  try  to  recover  the  rights  of  government  which  had 
been  lost.  This  policy  the  electors  followed  in  general 
to  the  end  of  the  middle  ages,  and  they  finally  allowed  the 
imperial  succession  to  settle  quietly  in  the  Hapsburg 
family  only  when  it  had  become  manifest  to  all  the  world 
that  it  was  nothing  more  than  an  empty  title. 

The  pohcy  which  the  emperors  on  their  side  adopted 
was  an  equally  emphatic  declaration  of  the  same  fact. 
Not  a  single  one  of  them,  during  the  whole  period,  made 
any  serious  attempt  to  reconstruct  the  central  govern- 
ment, but  every  family,  without  exception,  that  gained 
possession  of  the  imperial  office,  attempted  to  make  all 
that  it  could  out  of  the  opportunities  of  the  position  to 
enlarge  its  own  possessions  and  to  increase  its  family 
power.  Some  met  with  greater  and  others  with  less 
success;  but  all — Hapsburg  and  Nassau,  Wittelsbach 
and  Luxemburg— were  governed  by  the  same  rules  of 
conduct.  It  was  in  effect  a  unanimous  agreement  on 
the  part   of    the   emperors    that   centralization   was   no 


ENGLAND   AND   THE    OTHER   STATES  35 1 

ionger  possible,  that  there  was  no  use  in  trying  to  form  a 
national  government  of  the  German  people,  but  that  the 
only  successful  use  to  which  the  imperial  position  could 
be  put  was  to  make  their  own  local  state  as  large  and  as 
strong  as  possible. 

The  two  families  most  successful  in  this  policy  were 
those  of  Hapsburg  and  of  Luxemburg.  Rudolf  of  Haps- 
burg,  the  first  emperor  chosen  after  the  Interregnum,  was 
a  count  whose  scanty  possessions  lay  in  western  Switzer- 
land and  Alsace.  He  was  a  man  of  vigorous  character, 
but  one  in  no  way  distinguished  in  power  or  possessions 
from  a  hundred  others  in  the  Germany  of  that  day  who 
remained  unheard  of  in  history.  The  fortunate  fact  that 
he  was  able  to  break  up  the  threatening  Slavic  king- 
dom, which  was  ruled  over  by  Ottokar  II,  king  of  Bo- 
hemia, enabled  him  to  bestow  the  south  German  duchies, 
Austria  and  Styria,  which  had  been  Ottokar's,  upon  his 
son,  and  to  lay  the  foundations  of  the  future  greatness  of 
his  house.  The  electors  did  not  allow  the  crown  to  con- 
tinue during  the  next  generation  in  Rudolf's  family,  but 
later  other  Hapsburg  emperors  followed,  and  were  able 
to  continue  his  policy. 

An  equally  fortunate  chance  occurred  during  the  reign 
of  the  first  Luxemburg  emperor,  Henry  VII,  in  the  op- 
portimity  presented  him  to  marry  his  son  John  to  the 
heiress  of  the  Bohemian  crown.  John's  son,  the  Em- 
peror Charles  IV,  succeeded  in  gaining  possession  also 
of  Brandenburg,  which  the  Emperor  Lewis  IV  of  Ba- 
varia, who  followed  Henry  VII,  had  tried  to  secure  for 
his  family.  The  last  emperor  of  the  Luxemburg  house, 
Sigismund,  abandoned  Brandenburg  but  obtained  the 
kingdom  of  Hungary.  He  was  the  last  of  the  male  line 
of  his  family,  however,  and  the  great  possessions  which 
they  had  brought  together  passed  with  his  daughter  to 
the  Hapsburgs,  so  that  the  acquisitions  made  by  the  two 
families  who  had  most  successfully  followed  the  policy 
of  getting  all  that  they  could  for  themselves  from  the 


352  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

imperial  office  were  finally  united  in  the  hands  of  the 
Hapsburgs  alone. 

It  was  during  the  Luxemburg  period  that  Brandenburg 
passed  into  the  hands  of  the  Hohenzollerns,  who  have 
erected  modern  Prussia  upon  it  as  the  foundation.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century  the  Hohenzol- 
lerns were,  like  the  Hapsburgs,  merely  local  counts  in 
Switzerland,  giving  no  promise  of  future  greatness.  Early 
in  that  century  the  elder  line  obtained  the  office  of  Burg- 
graf  of  Nuremberg  and  an  opportunity  to  grow  rich,  which 
was  improved  with  the  hereditary  thriftiness  of  the  fam- 
ily, and  fortunate  marriages  and  purchases  increased  their 
possessions  and  influence  in  southern  Germany.  Finally, 
in  141 1,  the  Emperor  Sigismund,  in  need  of  money  and 
unable  to  establish  a  sound  government  in  the  troubled 
and  disordered  electorate  of  Brandenburg,  gave  it  into 
the  hands  of  Frederick  of  Nuremberg  as  pledge  for  a  loan, 
and  a  few  years  later  sold  it  to  him  outright.  Around  this 
as  a  beginning  the  later  Hohenzollern  electors  and  kings 
collected,  piece  by  piece,  the  modern  Prussia. 

Many  other  small  states  were  forming  in  the  same  way 
in  Germany  at  this  time,  many  that  have  not  survived 
the  political  storms  of  modern  history,  and  some  that 
have  continued  to  grow  larger  and  stronger,  or  at  least 
that  have  made  good  their  place  in  the  present  federal 
empire  of  Germany.  Within  many  of  these  states  the 
course  of  history  was  very  similar  to  that  in  France.  A 
group  of  feudally  independent  territories  was  united  under 
a  single  ruler,  and  by  degrees  the  barriers  which  separated 
them  were  broken  down  and  they  were  centralized  in  a 
common  government,  and  in  this  process  such  elements 
of  local  liberty  as  had  remained  were  destroyed  and  the 
government  became   an   absolutism.^     This  process  was 

'  The  dramatic  struggle  of  Franz  von  Sickingen  against  the  princes  of  the 
Upper  Rhine  valley,  in  1523,  is  an  instance  of  the  desperate  attempt  of  the 
smaller  independent  nobles  to  maintain  their  position  against  the  absorbing 
tendency  of  these  Uttle  states. 


ENGLAND   A>n)    THE    OTHER   STATES  353 

one,  however,  which  occurred  in  most  cases,  and  the  lar- 
ger part  of  it  in  modern  history  rather  than  in  medieval. 

In  Italy,  as  in  Germany,  the  nation  was  able  to  form 
no  government.  In  both  cases,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire  was  at  fault.  In  Italy  it  was  a  foreign 
power  which  prevented  the  rise  of  any  native  state  to  a 
sufficient  strength  to  absorb  the  whole  peninsula.  To 
the  influence  of  the  empire  must  be  added  that  of  the 
papacy  as  an  equally  responsible  cause — as  the  one  most 
responsible  in  the  last  centuries  of  the  middle  ages,  after 
the  empire  had  practically  disappeared,  and  in  modern 
times.  The  position  of  the  pope,  as  sovereign  of  a  httle 
state  in  central  Italy,  had  forced  him,  as  a  matter  of  self- 
defence,  to  use  all  possible  means  to  prevent  the  rise  of 
any  threatening  power  in  Italy  from  the  days  of  the  Lom- 
bards down — down,  indeed,  to  Victor  Emmanuel.  When 
such  a  power  appeared  to  be  forming  the  papacy  would 
strive  to  form  combinations  against  it  until  its  strength 
was  reduced  below  the  danger-point,  and  if  in  the  process 
one  of  the  pope's  own  allies  gained  too  much  strength, 
new  combinations  were  immediately  set  on  foot  against 
the  new  danger. 

No  government  for  the  nation  v/as  able  to  be  formed, 
but  an  immense  variety  of  local  governments  arose,  and 
a  most  intricate  entanglement  of  interstate  politics.  In 
the  south,  Naples  was  an  absolute  monarchy.  The  States 
of  the  Church  were  an  ecclesiastical  monarchy,  very 
loosely  organized  during  most  of  the  middle  ages,  but 
brought  into  order  and  centralized  by  the  political  genius 
of  Julius  II  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
Florence  presents  us  an  interesting  case.  Originally  a 
republic,  with  a  tendency  towards  democracy,  it  passed 
under  the  power  of  a  family  of  rich  bankers,  the  Medici, 
who,  without  holding  any  office  and  without  destroying 
the  forms  of  the  repubhc,  filled  all  the  offices  with  their 


254  MEDIEVAL    CR'ILIZATION 

nominees  and  determined  every  public  act  exactly  as 
does  an  American  "boss"  when  tds  party  is  in  power.i 
In  the  sixteenth  century  the  state  became  an  avowed 
monarchy  under  the  Medici  as  grand  dukes.  IMilan  was 
a  repubhc  turned  into  a  monarchy  by  military  force,  and 
Venice  a  republic  which  had  become  a  very  close  oli- 
garchy. 

But  if  a  national  government  was  not  formed,  a  na- 
tional consciousness  was,  as  in  Germany,  and  it  was 
given  clear  expression  now  and  then.  Its  most  remark- 
able product  was  MachiaveUi's  Prince,  written,  beyond 
a  reasonable  doubt,  to  show  how,  in  the  evil  circumstances 
then  existing,  a  national  government  might  be  created. 

The  rapid  rise  of  Spain  to  a  position  of  first  rank  among 
the  nations  was  one  of  the  most  important  political  facts 
of  the  close  of  the  middle  ages.  This  was  due  to  two 
causes:  to  the  union  of  the  two  largest  kingdoms  of  the 
peninsula  by  the  marriage  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella, 
and  to  the  poHtical  skill  of  Ferdinand.  Disunion  among 
the  various  provinces,  feudal  anarchy,  local  independence, 
and  a  weak  central  government  were  the  characteristics 
of  Spain  when  he  began  to  reign.  Within  a  few  years 
order  was  secured,  the  baronage  reduced  to  obedience, 
the  process  of  breaking  down  the  securities  of  local  in- 
dependence and  the  old  institutions  of  hberty  well  begun, 
the  monarchy  made  practically  an  absolutism,  if  not  in 
every  respect  legally  so  as  yet,  and,  although  the  old  pro- 
vincial lines  and  provincial  jealousies  could  not  be  entirely 

*  At  the  moment  of  writing,  in  1893,  the  newspapers  were  saying  that  the 
speaker  of  the  New  York  Assembly  had  stated  publicly  that  "all  legislation 
of  the  last  session  came  from  Tammany  Hall,  and  was  dictated  by  that 
great  statesman,  Richard  Croker,"  the  "boss"  of  New  York  City.  See  the 
New  York  Nation,  vol.  LVI,  p.  304,  which  added:  "Nothing  that  Croker 
desired  to  pass  failed  of  passage,  and  nothing  that  he  objected  to  was  able 
to  get  even  a  hearing."  This  was  exactly  the  position  of  the  early  Medici. 
Cases  of  the  sort  have  not  entirely  disappeared  from  the  United  States  since 
1893. 


ENGLAND   ANT)    THE    OTHER    STATES  355 

obliterated,  they  were  thrown  into  the  background  by  the 
coming  up  of  new  and  more  national  interests.  It  was 
chance  rather  than  skill  which  added  America  to  the  re- 
sources of  the  Spanish  monarchy,  but  it  formed  no  in- 
considerable element  in  the  rapid  rise  of  the  new  state. 
In  all  else,  the  internal  consolidation,  the  conquest  of 
Granada  and  Navarre,  the  footing  gained  in  Italy,  the 
judgment  in  regard  to  the  policy  of  France,  and  the  allies 
which  were  secured,  the  political  skill  of  Ferdinand  must 
be  admitted,  however  disastrous  his  policy  was  to  prove 
in  other  hands  and  in  conditions  which  no  genius  could 
forecast. 

Ferdinand  was,  of  all  the  sovereigns  of  his  day,  the 
one  who  saw  most  clearly  that,  in  political  affairs,  the 
middle  ages  had  passed  away  and  a  new  age  begun.  He 
could  hardly  have  stated  his  opinion  in  these  words,  but 
he  realized  that  the  settlement  of  the  domestic  problems 
which  he  had  so  well  in  hand  left  the  state  at  liberty  to 
secure  advantages  for  itself  in  Europe  at  large,  and  that 
the  near  rivalry  of  other  European  states  for  these  ad- 
vantages made  it  the  part  of  wisdom  to  be  beforehand 
with  them,  and  to  get  a  footing  and  allies  wherever  pos- 
sible. The  first  hnks  in  the  chain  of  modern  interna- 
tional pohtics  were  forged  by  Ferdinand.  It  was  the  set- 
tlement of  these  domestic  problems  in  all  the  states,  or 
their  settlement  to  such  an  extent  that  they  were  no 
longer  the  most  pressing  necessities  of  the  moment,  which 
brings  the  middle  ages  to  an  end  politically,  and  leads 
to  the  beginning  of  that  most  characteristic  feature  of 
modern  history — international  diplomacy. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE   RENAISSANCE 

We  have  now  traced,  as  resulting  from  the  influence 
imparted  by  the  crusades,  great  economic  and  political 
revolutions  which  changed  the  face  of  history,  and 
brought  the  middle  ages  to  a  close  so  far  as  their  influ- 
ence reached.  These  two  revolutions  were  hardly  more 
than  well  under  way  when  there  began  another,  growing 
largely  out  of 'the  conditions  which  they  were  producing, 
starting  partly  from  the  same  general  impulse  which 
aided  them,  a  revolution  of  even  greater  importance  than 
they  in  its  influence  upon  the  characteristic  features  of 
our  own  time,  if  it  is  possible  to  measure  the  relative 
values  of  such  movements— that  intellectual  and  scientific 
transformation  of  Europe  which  we  call  the  Revival  of 
Learning,  or  the  Renaissance. 

Each  of  these  names  expresses  a  great  fact  which  was 
characteristic  of  the  movement  and  which  it  is  well  to 
distinguish,  the  one  from  the  other. 

There  was  a  revival  of  learning.  The  conditions  which 
prevailed  in  the  earlier  middle  ages,  and  obscured  the 
learning  ^'hich  the  ancients  had  acquired,  were  changing 
rapidly,  the  effects  of  the  Teutonic  invasion  were  passing 
away.  Conquerors  and  conquered  had  grown  into  a  sin- 
gle people,  and  the  descendants  of  the  original  Germans 
had  reached  the  point  where  they  could  comprehend  the 
highest  results  of  the  ancient  civilization.  New  national 
languages  had  been  formed,  and  literatures  had  begun, 
no  longer  ecclesiastical  in  authorship  or  theme  but  close 

356 


THE   RENAISSANCE  357 

to  daily  life.  The  stir  of  great  events,  and  the  contagion 
of  new  ideas  in  commerce  and  exploration  and  politics 
filled  the  air,  and  the  horizon  of  men's  minds  and  inter- 
ests was  daily  growing  wider.  It  was  impossible  that 
many  generations  of  these  economic  and  political  changes 
should  go  by  before  men  began  to  realize  that  there  lay 
behind  them  a  most  significant  history,  and  that  the  men 
of  the  past  had  many  things  to  teach  them.  When  men 
became  conscious  of  this  the  revival  of  learning  began. 

But  there  was  more  than  a  revival  of  learning — more 
than  a  recovery  of  what  the  ancient  world  had  known  and 
the  medieval  forgotten.  There  was  also  a  renaissance,  a 
re-birth  of  emotions  and  of  faculties  long  dormant,  an 
awakening  of  man  to  a  new  consciousness  of  life  and  of 
the  world  in  which  he  fives,  and  of  the  problems  which 
fife  and  the  world  present  for  the  thinking  mind  to  solve, 
and  to  a  consciousness  also  of  the  power  of  the  mind  to 
deal  with  these  problems  and  to  investigate  the  secrets 
of  nature. 

This  intellectual  movement  was,  then,  in  the  first  place, 
a  recovery  of  the  learning  and  literature  of  the  ancient 
world. 

Classical  literature  had  never  passed  into  absolute 
eclipse  even  in  the  darkest  days.  The  German  states 
which  took  the  place  of  the  empire  would  have  been 
glad  to  preserve  and  continue  the  Roman  system  of  pub- 
lic schools,  which  extended  through  the  provinces,  if  they 
had  known  how  to  do  so.  But  they  did  not.  They  were 
themselves  still  too  crude  and  backward  to  be  able  to  take 
hold  of  the  old  educational  system  as  a  rescuing  power, 
and  to  save  it  from  the  decline  which  had  already  begun, 
nor  could  they  infuse  new  life  and  vigor  into  the  dying 
classical  literature.  On  the  other  hand,  the  old  lacked  all 
independent  power  of  growth  and  did  not  have  force 
enough  to  master  the  Germans  and  raise  them  rapidly  to 
its  own  level.     The  disorderly  and  rapidly  shifting  po- 


358  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

litical  conditions  of  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries  did  not 
a  little  also  to  destroy  the  schools,  and  the  attitude  of 
the  church  toward  them,  if  not  directly  hostile,  was  dis- 
couraging. 

As  a  result,  the  state  schools  disappeared;  a  really 
educated  class  no  longer  existed;  the  knowledge  of  Greek, 
which  had  been  very  common  throughout  the  West,  was 
entirely  lost — St.  Augustine,  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifth 
century,  could  use  it  only  with  difficulty;  and,  as  an  im- 
mediate result  of  the  conquest,  the  ability  to  use  the 
Latin  language  correctly  also  threatened  to  disappear. 
The  sixth  and  seventh  centuries  represent  probably  the 
lowest  point  reached  in  the  intellectual  decline  of  the 
middle  ages,  though  the  actual  improvement  upon  them 
which  was  made  before  the  eleventh  century  was  not  very 
great. 

The  place  of  the  state  schools  was  taken  in  the  new 
kingdoms  by  church  schools.  The  course  of  study  in  the 
Roman  schools  had  been  a  narrow  one,  as  we  should 
regard  it,  its  object  being  chiefly  to  fit  for  public  life  and 
oratory.  The  church  schools  were  still  more  narrow — 
not  in  the  nominal  course  of  study  which  followed  the 
classical — the  trivium,  grammar,  rhetoric,  and  dialectics, 
and  the  quadrivium,  arithmetic,  geometry,  astronomy,  and 
music — but  in  the  meagre  contents  of  these  studies  and 
in  the  practical  object,  to  fit  the  pupils  as  priests  to  read 
the  service  of  the  church,  not  always  to  understand  it. 

The  first  improvement  in  these  schools  came  in  the  age 
/oi  Alcuin,  under  Charlemagne,  as  has  already  been  related. 
y  This  was  a  revival  of  schools  rather  than  of  learning,  but 
^it  brought  about  an  improvement  in  the  writing  of  Latin, 
and  it  was  broad  enough  to  have  led  in  a  short  time  to 
a  very  decided  advance,  if  the  political  and  social  condi- 
tion had  continued  to  make  this  possible.  Mind  was  en- 
ergetic and  vigorous  enough.  There  was  no  lack  of  abil- 
ity.    The  ecclesiastical  literature  of  the  time,  both  the 


THE   RENAISSANCE  359 

imaginative  and  the  legal,  makes  that  evident.  But  if 
there  was  ability  there  was  also  the  greatest  ignorance. 
The  historical  mistakes  are  of  the  baldest,  the  science 
the  most  absurd,  broad  and  general  conceptions  are  wholly 
lacking.  The  literature  reveals  at  once  the  great  activity 
of  mind  and  the  narrow  conditions  of  the  age. 

In  the  following  centuries,  here  and  there,  slight  im- 
provements were  made.  The  school  of  Rheims  under 
Gerbert  in  the  tenth  century,  the  school  of  Chartres  under 
Bernard  in  the  twelfth  century,  are  remarkable  instances, 
but  circumscribed,  like  all  else  of  the  time,  in  their  in- 
fluence. Some  additions  of  importance  were  made  to  the 
stock  of  knowledge — some  books  of  Euclid,  some  treatises 
of  Aristotle.  Impulses  from  without  began  to  be  received; 
some  very  slight  Byzantine  influence,  perhaps  under  the 
Ottos  of  Germany;  more  important  the  influence  from 
the  Arabian  civilization  of  south  Europe,  though  this  is 
extremely  difficult  to  trace  with  any  certainty  in  its  be- 
ginnings; more  eflfectual  still,  among  new  influences,  the 
general  awakening,  and  the  gradual  transformation  of  all 
external  conditions  which  followed  the  crusades. 

The  first  effect  of  these  changes  and  of  these  new  im- 
pulses was  that  the  mind  of  Europe  began  to  be  aroused, 
began  to  have  some  dim  idea  of  the  work  which  it  might 
do,  "and  became  eager  to  learn  and  to  produce.  But  it 
still  did  not  know.  It  did  not  have  the  materials  of 
knowledge.  The  work  of  the  ancients  was  still  a  sealed 
book  to  it,  and  it  had  no  conception  of  the  investigation 
of  nature.  In  consequence  it  went  to  work  with  the 
greatest  activity  and  earnestness  on  the  materials  which 
it  did  have,  the  dogmatic  theology  of  the  church,  certain 
scanty  principles  of  the  Greek  philosophy,  and  the  truths 
which  it  could  derive  from  reason,  and  out  of  these  ma- 
terials by  purely  speculative  methods  it  built  up  widely 
comprehensive  systems  of  thought,  highly  organized  and 
scientific,  so  far  as  it  was  possible  for  them  to  be  scien- 


360  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

tific,  but  one-sided  and  utterl}'  barren  for  all  the  chief  in- 
terests of  modern  life,  and  necessarily  so  because  of  the 
limitations  of  their  material  and  of  their  method.^ 

This  system,  scholasticism,  was  the  first  movement  of 
the  age  of  the  Renaissance,  its  prediction  and  its  intro- 
duction. It  originated  under  the  influence  of  the  causes 
which  led  to  the  Renaissance,  but  of  these  causes  when 
'they  were  just  beginning  to  act  and  only  faintly  felt.  It 
displayed  the  same  characteristics  of  mind  as  the  later 
age,  but  these  while  they  were  not  yet  emancipated  from 
the  control  of  other  and  thoroughly  medieval  character- 
istics. It  gave  most  hopeful  promise  of  what  was  to  be, 
but  the  new  spirit  had  as  yet  so  little  to  build  upon,  and 
was  so  dwarfed  and  overshadowed  by  tradition  and  au- 
thority, that  it  could  survive  and  display  itself  only  as 
earnest  and  eager  effort. 

1  Lord  Bacon  described  the  real  nature  of  scholasticism  in  a  passage  which 
cannot  be  too  often  quoted  in  this  connection.  He  says:  "This  kind  of 
degenerate  learning  did  chiefly  reign  among  the  schoolmen,  who — having 
sharp  and  strong  wits,  and  abundance  of  leisure,  and  small  variety  of  read- 
ing, but  their  wits  being  shut  up  in  the  cells  of  a  few  authors  (chiefly  Aris- 
totle their  dictator),  as  their  persons  were  shut  up  in  the  cells  of  monasteries 
and  colleges,  and  knowing  little  history,  either  of  nature  or  time — did,  out 
of  no  great  quantity  of  matter  and  infinite  agitation  of  wit,  spin  out  unto 
us  those  laborious  webs  of  learning  which  are  extant  in  their  books.  For 
the  wit  and  mind  of  man,  if  it  work  upon  matter,  which  is  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  creatures  of  God,  worketh  according  to  the  stuff  and  is  limited 
thereby;  but  if  it  work  upon  itself,  as  the  spider  worketh  his  web,  then  it 
is  endless,  and  brings  forth,  indeed,  cobwebs  of  learning,  admirable  for  the 
fineness  of  thread  and  work,  but  of  no  substance  or  profit." — Advancement 
of  Learning,  IV,  5. 

To  hold  up  certain  absurdities  of  scholasticism  to  ridicule,  as  has  some- 
times been  done,  as  if  they  indicated  the  real  character  of  the  system,  is  to 
furnish  good  evidence  of  one's  own  narrowness  of  mind.  Not  merely  did 
scholasticism  make  important  contributions  to  one  side  of  civilization — 
speculative  theology  and  philosophy — but  even  its  supposed  absurdities  had 
meaning.  To  debate  the  question  whether  an  angel  can  pass  from  one 
point  to  another  without  passing  through  the  intermediate  space,  is  to  de- 
bate the  question  whether  pure  being  is  conditioned  by  space.  Very  likely 
such  a  question  cannot  be  answered,  but  if  there  is  to  be  a  system  of  specu- 
lative philosophy  at  all,  it  must  consider  such  questions  in  some  form,  and 
they  can  hardly  be  called  absurd. 


THE   RENAISSANCE  361 

The  great  age  of  active  and  creative  scholasticism  was 
the  thirteenth  century,  one  of  the  greatest  intellectual 
ages  of  the  world's  history.  It  is  impossible  in  a  para- 
graph to  give  any  conception  of  the  intellectual  stir,  the 
mental  eagerness  and  enthusiasm  of  that  century,  or  even 
to  catalogue  its  great  names  and  their  achievements. 
Two  or  three  things  must  be  noticed  because  they  indi- 
cate in  the  clearest  way  how  the  results  of  the  thirteenth 
century  affected  the  later  movement. 

One  of  them  is  the  pathetic  story  of  Roger  Bacon,  a 
man  who  saw  the  danger  of  reliance  upon  authority,  and 
proclaimed  the  methods  of  criticism  and  observation,  and 
pointed  out  the  way  in  which  investigation  should  go, 
and  the  use  which  should  be  made  of  the  new  materials 
which  had  been  gained,  in  a  spirit  almost  modern  and 
with  such  clearness  of  insight  as  should  have  led  to  the 
revival  of  learning  as  one  of  the  immediate  results  of  the 
thirteenth  century.  But  he  could  get  no  one  to  hear  him. 
The  reign  of  authority  and  of  deduction,  the  scholastic 
methods  and  the  scholastic  ideals,  had  become  so  firmly 
seated  in  their  empire  over  men,  under  the  influence  of 
the  great  minds  of  that  century,  that  no  others  seemed 
possible.  His  works  passed  out  of  the  world's  knowl- 
edge with  no  discoverable  trace  of  influence  until  the  Re- 
naissance was  fully  under  way,  and  then  only  the  very 
slightest.  The  result  of  the  century,  in  other  words,  was 
entirely  opposed  in  nature  and  in  method  to  a  revival  of 
real,  learning. 

Another  feature  of  the  thirteenth  century  to  be  noticed 
was  the  founding  of  universities.  Developed  out  of  cer- 
tain of  the  earlier  schools,  under  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
age  for  learning,  by  the  introduction  of  new  methods 
of  teaching  and  of  study,  they  spread  rapidly  throughout 
Europe,  and  seemed  to  promise  most  effective  aid  to 
intellectual  advance.  But  in  their  case,  as  in  Bacon's, 
scholasticism  was  too  highly  organized,  its  conceptions 


362  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

still  too  completely  filled  the  whole  mental  horizon  for 
the  learned  world  to  be  able  to  turn  in  any  other  direc- 
tion, and  the  universities  fell  completely  under  its  con- 
trol.^ Even  subjects  of  study  which  it  would  seem  might 
lead  to  better  things — the  Roman  law  which,  we  should 
think,  ought  to  have  led  to  the  study  of  history;  and 
medicine,  which  ought  to  have  suggested  an  idea  of  real 
science— became  thoroughly  scholastic,  and  held  under 
heavy  bonds  to  introduce  notliing  new. 

The  result,  then,  of  the  first  or  scholastic  revival  was 
the  creation  of  a  gigantic  system  of  organized  knowledge, 
in  so  far  as  there  was  knowledge,  in  which  almost  every 
conceivable  idea  had  its  place,  and  which  exercised  a 
most  tyrannous  sway  over  all  mental  activity,  because  it 
was  so  intimately  bound  up  with  an  infallible  system  of 
theology  which  every  mind  was  obliged  to  accept  under 
peril  of  eternal  penalties.  Independent  thinking  in  phi- 
losophy was  heresy  and  a  crime.  When  the  Renaissance 
movement  really  began,  with  its  new  spirit  and  ideas  and 
methods,  it  found  the  field  wholly  occupied  by  this  great 
system,  all  the  learned  by  profession  were  its  devoted  sup- 
porters, and  the  universities  its  home.  The  new  spirit 
was  compelled,  therefore,  to  take  its  rise  and  to  find  its 
apostles  outside  the  learned  professions.  The  odds  were 
against  it,  and  it  could  restore  true  knowledge  and  scien- 
tific method  only  by  severe  struggle  and  a  successful 
revolution. 

The  final  outcome,  then,  of  the  thirteenth  century  was 
that  scholasticism,  however  earnestly  it  may  have  desired 
such  a  result  at  the  beginning,  really  introduced  no  revi- 
val of  learning,  but  brought  about  an  organization  of 
knowledge  and  of  education  which  was  a  decided  obstacle 
to  the  revival  when  it  came.     This  means,  in  other  words, 

'Chaucer  almost  makes  "logic"  synonymous  with  "university"  in  his 
description  of  the  clerk  of  Oxenford,  "that  unto  logik  hadde  longe  i-go."— 
Prologue,  1.  286. 


THE   RENAISSANCE  363 

that  no  revival  could  come  until  the  questioning  and 
criticising  spirit  which  dimly  showed  itself  in  the  forma- 
tive age  of  scholasticism  should  awake  again  to  a  new 
activity  and  a  better  fate,  and  bring  about  a  complete 
abandonment  of  the  medieval  point  of  view. 

By  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century  the  general 
conditions  had  come  to  be  still  more  favorable  for  such 
an  awakening  than  at  the  beginning  of  scholasticism. 
The  economic  and  political  progress  of  the  thirteenth 
century  had  been  very  great,  and  the  fourteenth  century 
was  a  time  of  still  more  rapid  change  in  these  respects. 
An  entirely  new  atmosphere  was  coming  to  prevail  in  the 
more  advanced  nations  of  Europe,  new  objects  of  interest, 
new  standards  of  judgment,  and  new  purposes  to  be 
realized.  If  these  changes  showed  themselves  first  in 
the  growth  of  national  feelings  and  patriotism,  in  the  rise 
of  the  lower  orders  and  a  higher  regard  for  man  as  man, 
and  in  bolder  commercial  ventures  and  the  exploration 
of  unknown  lands,  it  was  barely  first.  We  can  trace  their 
continuous  expression  and  influence  in  thought  and  lit- 
erature from  a  point  almost  as  early. 

And  there  needed  to  be  added  to  these  other  changes 
which  had  already  taken  place  only  a  change  of  the  same 
sort  in  intellectual  interests,  showing  itself  as  clearly  in 
science  and  literature  and  art  as  in  government  and  com- 
merce, to  complete  the  transformation  of  the  medieval 
man  into  the  modern.  In  the  middle  ages  man  as  an 
individual  had  been  held  of  very  little  account.  He  was 
only  part  of  a  great  machine.  He  acted  only  through 
some  corporation — the  commune,  the  guild,  the  order. 
He  had  but  little  self-confidence,  and  very  little  con- 
sciousness of  his  ability  single-handed  to  do  great  things 
or  overcome  great  difliculties.  Life  was  so  hard  and  nar- 
row that  he  had  no  sense  of  the  joy  of  mere  living,  and  no 
feeling  for  the  beauty  of  the  world  around  him,  and,  as 
if  this  world  were  not  dark  enough,  the  terrors  of  another 


364  MEDIEVAL   CI\aLIZATION 

world  beyond  were  very  near  and  real.  He  lived  \^ath 
no  sense  of  the  past  behind  him,  and  with  no  conception 
of  the  possibilities  of  the  future. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  modern  man, 
who  is  a  modern  man,  is  the  opposite  of  all  this.  We 
are  almost  too  completely  a  world  of  individuals.  We 
have  a  supreme  self-confidence.  Nearly  any  man  of  us 
is  ready  to  undertake  any  task  with  a  firm  confidence  in 
his  ability  to  carry  it  through,  and  not  very  many  of  us 
are  shut  out  of  a  full  enjoyment  of  the  beauties  of  this 
world  by  too  keen  a  sense  of  the  realities  of  another. 
It  was  the  work  of  the  Renaissance  to  change  the  one 
sort  of  man  into  the  other;  to  awaken  in  man  a  conscious- 
ness of  his  powers  and  to  give  him  confidence  in  himself; 
to  show  him  the  beauty  of  the  world  and  the  joy  of  life; 
and  to  make  him  feel  his  living  connection  with  the  past, 
and  the  greatness  of  the  future  which  he  might  create. 

It  needed  but  little  of  the  successful  work  which  men 
were  doing  in  those  days  in  the  fields  of  politics  and  of 
commerce — the  creation  of  states  whether  large  or  small, 
and  the  accumulation  of  wealth — to  arouse  these  feelings, 
at  least  in  their  beginnings,  and  in  a  half-conscious  way. 
The  impulse  which  intellectual  progress  received  at  this 
point  from  the  political  and  economic  is  clear — one  of  the 
evident  cases  of  the  close  dependence  of  the  various  lines 
of  advance  upon  one  another  already  referred  to.  And 
it  is  necessary  in  order  to  obtain  any  clear  conception  of 
this  age  of  transition  to  feel  the  intimate  connection  of  all 
these  movements  with  one  another,  indeed  their  essential 
unity  as  various  sides  of  one  great  movement. 

It  was  in  Italy  that  this  connection  was  first  made 
and  this  impulse  first  received.  It  was  there  that  the 
new  commercial  age  had  begun  and  had  first  produced 
its  results.  Numerous  large  cities  had  been  formed,  pos- 
sessed of  great  wealth  and  becoming  very  early  little 
independent  states.     Their  fierce  conflicts  with  one  an- 


THE   RENAISSANCE  365 

other  had  thrown  them  upon  their  own  resources,  and 
called  forth  the  greatest  mental  activity.  Within  their 
walls  exciting  and  bitter  party  conflicts  were  a  continu- 
ous stimulus  to  the  individual  citizen.  A  democratic 
tendency  in  most  of  them  opened  the  hope  of  great  suc- 
cesses to  any  man.  Birth  counted  for  next  to  nothing. 
Abilities  and  energy  might  win  any  place.  Woman  be- 
came the  equal  of  man,  and  took  part  in  public  life  with 
the  same  self-confidence.  All  the  political  and  commer- 
cial activities  of  the  time,  with  their  great  rewards  open 
to  any  man,  and  their  intense  stimulus  to  individual  am- 
bition, combined  to  emancipate  the  individual,  and  to 
foster  in  him  a  belief  in  his  own  powers,  and  an  indepen- 
dence of  judgment  and  action,  necessary  as  a  preliminary 
to  the  revival  of  learning.  The  rapid  development  of 
Italy  since  the  crusades,  in  the  one  direction,  had  prepared 
her  to  lead  in  the  other,  and  this  fact  gives  us  the  reason 
why  the  Renaissance  was  an  Italian  event. 

It  is  in  Dante  that  we  find  the  first  faint  traces  of  the 
existence  of  these  new  forces  in  the  intellectual  world 
proper,  and  the  beginning  of  their  continuous  modern 
action,  and  we  may  call  Dante  the  first  man  of  the  Re- 
naissance, though  it  is  perhaps  equally  correct  to  call 
him  a  thoroughly  medieval  man.  His  theology  and  phi- 
losophy were  medieval  and  scholastic,  his  hell  was  mate- 
rial enough,  and  the  dream  of  his  political  thought  was 
the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  a  distinctly  medieval  idea.  But 
along  with  these  we  catch  gleams  of  other  and  different 
things.  His  theology  may  be  medieval  and  his  hell  mate- 
rial, but  there  is  an  independence  of  judgment  in  special 
cases  which  is  decidedly  more  modern,  and,  something  far 
more  important,  there  is  the  clearest  possible  conception 
of  the  fact  that  it  is  not  a  man's  place  in  a  great  organiza- 
tion, but  his  individual  character  and  spirit  which  deter- 
mine his  future  destiny;  that  individual  character  not 
merely  works  itself  out  in  the  conduct  of  life,  but  that  it 


366  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

will  be  a  controlling  factor  in  fixing  one's  place  in  any  life 
hereafter.  His  political  idea  may  be  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire,  but  he  reveals  traces  of  the  distinctly  modern 
feeling  that  the  state  should  exist  for  the  sake  of  the  in- 
dividual, and  that  the  individual  should  have  some  voice 
in  the  management  of  its  affairs.  The  writing  of  his  great 
poem  in  a  modern  language  is  no  small  evidence  of  inde- 
pendence. He  has  some  feeling  for  the  beauty  of  the 
world  and  of  life,  and  some  real  sense  of  a  living  connec- 
tion with  the  men  of  antiquity.  These  modern  traits, 
however,  though  they  may  be  found  in  Dante,  are  ex- 
pressed but  faintly.  The  great  mass  of  his  thought  is 
medieval.  It  is  only  the  sHght  beginnings  of  the  current 
which  we  can  detect  in  him. 

But  in  the  next  generation,  in  Petrarch,  we  have  the 
full  tide.  In  him  we  clearly  find,  as  controlling  personal 
traits,  all  those  specific  features  of  the  Renaissance  which 
give  it  its  distinguishing  character  as  an  intellectual  revo- 
lution, and  from  their  strong  beginning  in  him  they  have 
never  ceased  among  men.  In  the  first  place,  he  felt  as  no 
other  man  had  done  since  the  ancient  days  the  beauty 
of  nature  and  the  pleasure  of  mere  hfe,  its  sufficiency  for 
itself;  and  he  had  also  a  sense  of  ability  and  power,  and 
a  self-confidence  which  led  him  to  plan  great  things,  and 
to  hope  for  an  immortality  of  fame  in  this  world.  In  the 
second  place,  he  had  a  most  keen  sense  of  the  unity  of 
past  history,  of  the  living  bond  of  connection  between 
himself  and  men  of  like  sort  in  the  ancient  world.  That 
world  was  for  him  no  dead  antiquity,  but  he  lived  and  felt 
in  it  and  with  its  poets  and  thinkers,  as  if  they  were  his 
neighbors.  His  love  for  it  amounted  almost,  if  we  may 
call  it  so,  to  an  ecstatic  enthusiasm,  hardly  understood  by 
his  own  time,  but  it  kindled  in  many  others  a  similar  feel- 
ing which  has  come  down  to  us.  The  result  is  easily  rec- 
ognized in  him  as  a  genuine  culture,  the  first  of  modern 
men  in  whom  this  can  be  found. 


THE   RENAISSANCE  367 

It  led,  also,  in  his  case,  to  what  is  another  characteris- 
tic feature  of  the  Renaissance — an  intense  desire  to  get 
possession  of  all  the  writings  which  the  ancient  world 
had  produced.  It  was  of  vital  importance,  before  any 
new  work  was  begun,  that  the  modern  world  should  know 
what  the  ancients  had  accomplished,  and  be  able^to  begin 
where  they  had  left  off.  This  preliminary  work  of  col- 
lection was  one  of  the  most  important  services  rendered 
by  the  men  of  the  revival  of  learning.  For  the  writings 
of  the  classical  authors  Petrarch  sought  with  the  utmost 
eagerness  wherever  he  had  an  opportunity,  and  though 
the  actual  number  which  he  was  able  to  find,  of  those 
that  had  not  been  known  to  some  one  or  other  in  medieval 
days,  was  small,  still  his  collection  was  a  large  one  for  a 
single  man  to  make,  and  he  began  that  active  search  for 
the  classics  which  was  to  produce  such  great  results  in  the 
next  hundred  years. 

In  another  direction,  also,  Petrarch  opened  the  age  of 
the  Renaissance.  The  great  scientific  advance  which  was 
made  by  this  age  over  the  middle  ages  does  not  consist 
so  much  in  any  actual  discoveries  or  new  contributions 
to  knowledge  which  were  made  by  it,  as  in  the  overthrow 
of  authority  as  a  final  appeal,  and  the  recovery  of  criti- 
cism and  observation  and  comparison  as  the  effective 
methods  of  work.  Far  more  important  was  this  restora- 
tion of  the  true  method  of  science  than  any  specific  scien- 
tific work  which  was  done  in  the  Renaissance  age  proper. 
Here  again  it  is  with  Petrarch  that  the  modern  began. 
He  attacked  more  than  one  old  tradition  and  belief  sup- 
ported by  authority  with  the  new  weapons  of  criticism 
and  comparison,  and  in  one  case  at  least,  in  his  investi- 
gation of  the  genuineness  of  charters  purporting  to  have 
been  granted  by  Julius  Caesar  and  Nero  to  Austria,  he 
showed  himself  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  spirit  and 
master  of  the  methods  of  modern  science. 

Finally,  Petrarch  first  put  the  modern  spirit  into  con- 


368  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

scious  opposition  to  the  medieval.  The  Renaissance 
meant  rebellion  and  revolution.  It  meant  a  long  and 
bitter  struggle  against  the  whole  scholastic  system,  and 
all  the  folKes  and  superstitions  which  flourished  under  its 
protection.  Petrarch  opened  the  attack  along  the  whole 
line.  Physicians,  lawyers,  astrologers,  scholastic  phi- 
losophers, the  universities — all  were  enemies  of  the  new 
learning,  and  so  his  enemies.  And  these  attacks  were  not 
in  set  and  formal  polemics  alone,  his  letters  and  almost 
all  his  writings  were  filled  with  them.^  It  was  the  busi- 
ness of  his  life.  He  knew  almost  nothing  of  Plato,  and 
yet  he  set  him  up  boldly  against  the  almost  infallible 
Aristotle.  He  called  the  universities  ''nests  of  gloomy 
ignorance,"  and  ridiculed  their  degrees.  He  says:  "The 
youth  ascends  the  platform  mumbling  nobody  knows 
what.  The  elders  applaud,  the  bells  ring,  the  trumpets 
blare,  the  degree  is  conferred,  and  he  descends  a  wise 
man  who  went  up  a  fool."^ 

In  the  world  of  the  new  literature  Petrarch  obtained 
50  great  glory  in  his  own  lifetime,  and  exercised  such  a 
dictatorship  that  the  ideas  which  he  represented  obtained 
an  influence  and  extension  which  they  might  not  other- 
wise have  gained  so  rapidly.  When  he  died,  in  1374, 
the  Renaissance  was  fully  under  way  in  Italy  as  a  general 
movement,  and,  while  in  his  own  lifetime  there  is  hardly 
another  who  is  to  be  placed  beside  him  in  scholarship  and 
knowledge  of  antiquity,  there  soon  were  many  such,  and 
before  very  long  not  a  few  who  greatly  surpassed  him  in 
these  respects.  But  if  his  scholarship  cannot  be  con- 
sidered great  according  to  modern  standards,  it  will 
always  remain  his  imperishable  glory  to  have  inaugurated 
the  revival  of  learning.^ 

'  Voigt,  Die  Wiederbelebung  des  Classischen  AUcrthums,  vol.  I,  p.  72, 
third  ed. 

^MuHinger,  University  of  Cambridge,  vol.  I,  p.  382,  note  2. 

*  Voigt,  one  of  the  soundest  and  most  careful  of  all  students  of  Renais- 
sance history,  says  that  Petrarch's  name  shines  as  a  star  of  the  first  magni- 


THE   RENAISSANCE  369 

The  next  age  immediately  following  Petrarch  had  for 
its  great  vv^ork  the  revival  of. Grjeek  literature  and  knowl- 
edge, taught  by  Greeks  from  Constantinople.  It  con- 
tinued, also,  the  work  of  collecting  and  carefully  study- 
ing the  writings  of  the  ancients.  Before  the  middle  of 
the  fifteenth  century  the  material  in  hand,  both  of  the 
Latin  and  of  the  Greek  classics,  was  large  enough  and 
well  enough  understood  to  form  the  foundation  of  a  real 
scholarship  which  still  commands  respect. 

One  generation  later  still,  and  a  scholar,  in  the  mod- 
ern sense,  appeared,  Laurentius  Valla.  There  are  many 
things  now  perfectly  familiar  which  he  did  not  know; 
he  had  all  the  pride  and  insolence  and  hardly  disguised 
pagan  feeling  and  morals  of  the  typical  humanist;  but  in 
spirit  and  methods  of  work  he  was  a  genuine  scholar,  and 
his  editions  lie  at  the  foundation  of  all  later  editorial 
work  in  the  case  of  more  than  one  classical  author,  and 
of  the  critical  study  of  the  New  Testament  as  well.  One 
piece  of  wark  which  fell  to  him  made  more  noise  at  the 
time  than  these,  and  in  it  the  scholar  had  an  opportunity 
to  contribute  directly  to  the  political  movements  of  his 
age.  At  the  request  of  King  Alfonso  of  Naples  he  sub- 
jected the  so-called  Donation  of  Constantine  to  the  tests 
of  the  new  criticism  and  showed  its  historical  impossi- 
bility to  the  conviction  of  the  world,  thus  depriving  the 
papacy  of  one  source  of  argument  in  support  of  its  pre- 
tensions. 

Valla  was  still  li\'ing  when  the  invention  of  the  print- 
ing-press in  the  north  put  a  new  weapon  into  the  hands 
of  the  humanists,  and  enabled  them  to  bring  the  results 
of  their  labors  to  bear  upon  a  vastly  wider  circle  than 
before.  The  great  results  of  this  invention  for  civilization 
are  to  be  found,  not  so  much  in  the  preservation  as  in  the 

tude  in  the  literary  and  intellectual  history  of  the  world,  and  would  n'^*  be 
less  if  he  had  never  written  a  verse  in  the  Tuscan  language. — Die  W^^fd^Me- 
bung  des  Classischen  AUcrthums,  I,  p.  22. 


370  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

cheapening  of  books,  and  the  popularizing  of  the  means 
of  knowledge.  If  the  printing-press  reduced  the  price  of 
books  to  one-fifth  the  former  price,  as  it  seems  to  have 
done  before  it  had  been  in  operation  very  long,  it  much 
more  than  multiplied  by  five  the  number  of  persons  who 
could  own  and  use  them.  Although  the  spread  of  print- 
ing throughout  Europe  was  slow  as  compared  with  the 
rate  of  modern  times — an  invention  of  similar  importance 
to-day  would  probably  get  into  use  in  the  principal  places 
of  the  world  within  a  year  or  two — it  was  rapid  for  the 
middle  ages.  Invented,  apparently,  in  a  shape  at  least 
to  be  called  really  printing,  about  1450,  it  was  introduced 
into  Italy  in  1465,  possibly  slightly  earlier;  into  France 
and  Switzerland  in  1470,  into  Holland  and  Belgium  in 
1473,  i^^to  Spain  in  1474,  and  into  England  between  1474 
and  1477.  By  1500  it  was  in  use  in  eighteen  countries, 
and  at  least  two  hundred  and  thirty-six  places  had  print- 
ing-presses. Venice  alone  had  more  than  two  hundred, 
and  three  thousand  editions  had  been  printed  there. 

One  immediate  consequence  of  this  invention  was  that 
the  results  of  the  revival  of  learning,  its  new  spirit  of  in- 
dependence, and  its  methods  of  criticism,  could  no  longer 
be  confined  to  one  country  or  to  those  who  were  by  call- 
ing scholars.  They  spread  rapidly  throughout  Europe, 
affected  large  masses  of  the  people  who  knew  nothing  of 
the  classics,  and  became  vital  forces  in  that  final  revolu- 
tion of  which  Luther's  work  forms  a  part. 

Down  to  nearly  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  the 
humanistic  movement  had  been  confined  almost  wholly 
to  Italy.  The  names  and  achievements  which  could  be 
claimed  by  any  other  country  were  very  few.  But  as  the 
century  drew  to  a  close  such  names  became  more  numer- 
ous out  of  Italy,  and  the  movement  passed  to  Europe  at 
large. 

Among  the  northern  nations  the  Renaissance  not 
merely  aroused  the  same  enthusiasm  for  antiquity  and 


THE   RENAISSANCE  37 1 

the  same  eager  application,  in  various  directions,  of  the 
new  methods  of  stud}^  but  it  also  took  on  among  them  a 
far  more  earnest  and  practical  character  than  it  ever  had 
in  Italy.  Investigation  and  learning  ceased  to  be  so  en- 
tirely ends  in  themselves  or  means  to  secure  personal 
glory,  but  were  put  to  the  service  of  answering  practical 
questions  and  meeting  popular  needs.  The  most  emi- 
nent representative  of  this  tendency,  and  the  greatest 
scholar  of  the  Renaissance  age  proper,  was  Erasmus. 

Given  by  the  circumstances  of  his  childhood  an  oppor- 
tunity to  devote  himself  to  study  from  an  early  age, 
Erasmus,  earnest  and  eager,  and  of  extraordinary  ability, 
made  remarkable  use  of  the  scanty  means  of  learning  at 
his  command  in  the  monastery  in  which  he  was  placed. 
A  Httle  later,  at  the  University  of  Paris,  in  spite  of  pov- 
erty, and  ill  health,  and  other  discouragements,  his  prog- 
ress was  still  more  rapid.  In  these  early  stages  of  his 
education  Laurentius  Valla  seems  to  have  had  more  in- 
fluence over  him  than  any  one  else,  especially  in  training 
his  judgment  in  respect  to  a  correct  style,  a  training  which 
may  have  been  the  birth,  perhaps,  of  a  larger  critical 
sense.  At  the  age  of  thirty  he  went  over  to  England  to 
study  Greek  at  Oxford,  and  there  he  came  under  the  in- 
fluence of  two  remarkable  men,  John  Colet  and  Thomas 
More,  and,  if  we  may  trust  our  scanty  evidence,  this 
influence  was  of  great  importance  in  the  development  of 
his  character  and  purposes,  especially  the  influence  of 
Colet.i 

Colet  had  gone  to  Italy  for  study  while  Erasmus  was 
at  Paris,  and  while  there,  apparently,  an  earnest  religious 
purpose  was  awakened  in  his  mind  by  some  influence 

'  It  is  characteristic  of  Mr.  Seebohm's  very  stimulating  work  in  history, 
like  that  of  M.  Fustel  de  Coulanges  in  France,  that  it  presents  very  clearly 
and  completely  the  hne  of  connection  between  the  earlier  and  the  later 
stages  of  a  given  movement.  Meantime,  the  evidence  is  often  slight,  and 
while  opposing  evidence  may  be  wholly  wanting,  one  cannot  escape  the 
feeling  that  the  conclusions  are  sometimes  due  to  keenness  of  historic  in- 


372  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

under  which  he  came,  possibly  by  the  spiritualistic  phi- 
losophy of  Pico  della  Mirandola,  then  but  recently  dead, 
perhaps  by  some  other  of  the  Platonic  influences  of  that 
age,  more  likely  by  the  strong  outburst  of  religious  and 
ethical  emotion  in  Florence  under  the  influence  of  Sa- 
vonarola. We  know  so  little  of  Colet's  stay  in  Italy  that 
we  can  affirm  nothing  about  it  with  confidence,  and  it  is 
quite  as  probable  that  the  deeply  earnest  purpose  which 
he  displayed  in  his  work  on  his  return  was  natural  to 
him,  strengthened  perhaps  by  Italian  influences,  possi- 
bly as  much  by  a  repugnance  to  what  he  saw  there  as  by 
anything  directly  helpful. 

Upon  his  return  to  England  Colet  began  to  lecture 
upon  the  New  Testament,  with  a  distinctly  practical  pur- 
pose. He  sought,  for  example,  to  reproduce  the  thought 
of  Paul  as  Paul  held  it,  to  gain  an  understanding  of  it  by 
considering  the  circumstances  in  which  it  was  written, 
and  of  those  to  whom  it  was  written;  in  other  words,  to 
treat  it  as  a  living  argument,  with  a  definite  historical  pur- 
pose, and  so  to  make  clear  what  Paul  sought  to  teach. 
This  was  the  application  of  the  spirit  and  the  methods 
of  the  Renaissance  to  the  living  reconstruction  of  a  past 
age.  It  was  treating  the  New  Testament  as  a  historical 
document,  not  as  a  collection  of  scholastic  propositions. 
And  this  was  done  not  for  purposes  of  mere  scholarship, 
but  in  order  to  learn  what  that  age  had  to  give  in  the 
way  of  instruction  and  help,  and  to  reproduce,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  present,  the  spirit  and  ideas  of  the  early 
Christianity. 

The  carrying  out  of  such  a  purpose  was,  in  the  end, 
whether  as  a  result  of  Colet's  influence  or  not,  the  great 

sight  rather  than  to  direct  induction.  This  is  true  of  important  points  in 
Mr.  Seebohm's  Oxford  Reformers.  I  have  chosen  to  follow  its  conclusions 
because  they  seem  to  me,  on  the  whole,  probable;  but  it  should  be  remem- 
bered that  there  is  very  scanty  evidence  to  prove  what  the  Oxford  reformers 
imparted  to  Erasmus,  as  well  as  to  show  what  Colet  gained  in  Italy.  Lup- 
ton's  Life  of  John  Colet  is  a  very  sober  and  careful  work. 


THE   RENAISSANCE  373 

work  of  Erasmus's  life.  His  ambition  was  to  put  the 
documents  of  primitive  Christianity,  the  New  Testament 
and  the  early  fathers,  in  carefully  prepared  editions,  that 
is,  as  nearly  as  possible  exactly  as  they  were  written,  in 
the  hands  of  all  men,  so  that  they  could  judge  for  them- 
selves what  the  primitive  Christianity  was.  The  idea 
that  the  only  true  method  of  reaching  a  knowledge  of 
Christianity  was  to  go  to  the  original  sources  of  that 
knowledge,  itself  a  direct  result  of  the  revival  of  learning, 
was  constantly  in  his  mind  after  he  began  his  real  work, 
and  he  expresses  it  over  and  over  again,  with  varying  de- 
grees of  clearness.  If  any  one  wants  to  know  what  Chris- 
tianity is,  he  says,  in  effect,  what  Christ  taught,  what  Paul 
taught,  what  the  Christianity  was  of  those  who  founded 
it,  let  him  not  go  to  the  schoolmen  or  the  theologian. 
He  cannot  be  sure  that  they  represent  it  truly.  Let  him 
go  directly  to  the  New  Testament.  There  he  will  get  it 
plainly  and  simply,  so  plainly  that  all  men  can  see  and 
understand  exactly  what  it  was. 

His  first  step  in  this  work  was  to  publish,  in  1505,  an 
edition  of  Valla's  Annotations,  his  criticism  of  the  Vul- 
gate, with  a  prefatory  letter  of  his  own.  Then,  in  15 16, 
was  published  the  first  edition  of  his  own  New  Testa- 
ment, with  revised  Greek  text,  new  Latin  translation, 
and  .critical  notes,  in  which  he  defended  his  variations 
from  the  Vulgate,  and  called  attention  to  interesting  fea- 
tures of  the  early  Christianity  which  he  thought  needed 
present  emphasis.^     This  passed  through  five  authorized, 

^The  objections  which  were  made  by  the  conservatives  to  Erasmus's 
critical  study  of  the  New  Testament,  and  the  answers  which  he  made  are 
interesting  in  view  of  recent  phases  of  the  same  conflict.  They  may  be  read 
in  Seebohm.  One  monk  writes  him:  "In  very  deed,  my  dear  Erasmus, 
there  is  great  harm  [in  pointing  out  discrepancies  between  the  Greek  and 
Latin  copies].  Because,  about  this  matter  of  the  integrity  of  the  Holy 
S^i'crfptures  many  will  dispute,  many  will  doubt,  if  they  learn  that  even  one 
j  A  or  tittle  in  them  is  false,  .  .  .  and  then  will  come  to  pass  what  Augus- 
tine described  to  Jerome:  'If  any  error  should  be  admitted  to  have  crept  into 
the  Holy  Scriptures,  what  authority  would  be  left  to  them.'" — {Oxford  Re-' 


374  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

and  a  few  pirated,  editions  in  his  own  lifetime,  and  sold 
in  thousands  of  copies  all  over  Europe.  Besides  his  work 
^n  the  New  Testament  he  prepared  editions  of  a  very 
large  number  of  the  early  fathers  of  the  church. 

While  no  doubt  the  special  object  in  everything  that 
Erasmus  undertook  was  to  do  a  genuine  piece  of  scien- 
tific work,  still  the  distinctly  reformatory  purpose  in  it 
all  is  evident.  He  wished  to  show  men  what  the  primi- 
tive Christianity  was,  and  so  to  induce  them  to  reject  the 
abuses  and  corruptions  which  passed  under  its  name.  It 
will  be  evident,  however,  when  we  come  to  take  up  the 
Reformation  that  this  reformatory  purpose  of  his  was 
not  of  the  same  sort  as  Luther's,  and  that  he  could  not 
have  followed  his  lead.^ 

The  fact  that  Luther,  during  this  time  was  moved  also 

formers,  p.  316,  third  ed.)  Dr.  Eck,  Luther's  opponent,  "objected  ...  to 
the  method  of  Biblical  criticism  which  it  adopted  throughout.  He  objected 
to  the  suggestion  it  contained,  that  the  Apostles  quoted  the  Old  Testament 
from  memory,  and,  therefore,  not  always  correctly.  He  objected  to  the 
insinuation  that  their  Greek  was  colloquial,  and  not  strictly  classical." 
Erasmus  replied  "that,  in  his  judgment,  the  authority  of  the  whole  Scrip- 
tures would  not  fall  with  any  slip  of  memory  on  the  part  of  an  Evangelist — 
e.  g.,  if  he  put  'Isaiah'  by  mistake  for  'Jeremiah'— because  no  point  of  im- 
portance turns  upon  it.  We  do  not  forthwith  think  evil  of  the  whole  life  of 
Peter  because  Augustine  and  Ambrose  affirm  that  even  after  he  had  received 
the  Holy  Ghost  he  fell  into  error  on  some  points;  and  so  our  faith  is  not  alto- 
gether shaken  in  a  whole  book  because  it  has  some  defects." — {Ibid.,  pp. 
435-436.) 

'  Every  reform  movement  produces  two  classes  of  reformers,  each  seeking, 
perhaps,  the  same  ultimate  end,  but  differing  widely  as  to  means.  One  be- 
lieves that  the  reformation  is  to  be  successfully  obtained  only  by  remaining 
within  the  old  organization  and  reforming  from  within  out.  The  other  be- 
lieves that  the  old  is  too  set  in  its  \Tays  to  be  reformed  by  conservative 
methods  and  by  arguing,  and  that  the  only  successful  way  is  rebellion,  or 
even  revolution.  It  cannot  be  affirmed  that  it  is  so,  without  exception, 
but  it  is  at  least  usual  in  history,  certainly  where  the  abuses  are  deeply 
seated  and  where  the  reform  has  been  carried  through  at  all,  that  the  rebels, 
the  radical  reformers  have  been  those  to  do  it,  whether  by  the  success  of  their 
revolution,  or,  very  Hkely  as  often,  by  its  defeat.  Erasmus  belonged  to  the 
conservative  reformers,  to  the  reformers  from  within,  and,  leaving  aside  all 
theological  differences  between  them,  it  was  entirely  impossible  that  he 
should  follow  Luther. 


THE   RENAISSANCE  375 

by  the  same  controlling  idea  as  Erasmus,  and  cherished 
the  same  wish  to  restore  a  truer  Christianity,  and  that  he 
came  upon  this  thought  independently,  does  not  make  the 
contribution  of  Erasmus  to  the  final  success  of  Luther's 
reform  any  less  important.  The  idea  of  the  necessity  of 
an  appeal  to  the  original  sources  of  knowledge  was  in  the 
air,  as  an  essential  part  of  the  Renaissance  age.  In  rela- 
tion to  Christianity,  it  was  absolutely  certain  that  this 
appeal  would  be  taken,  and  the  results  of  it  be  made  clear 
to  the  minds  of  common  people  as  well  as  to  the  learned. 
This  Luther  did.  But  he  could  hardly  have  done  his 
work,  certainly  not  so  well,  but  for  Erasmus.  Erasmus's 
work  not  merely  helped  to  arouse  and  make  general  the 
idea  of  such  an  appeal,  but  it  also  put  into  Luther's 
hand,  prepared  for  use,  the  material  which  he  needed  for 
his  argument.  Luther  was  the  revolutionary  leader,  Eras- 
mus the  scholar. 

In  the  connection  established  with  the  Reformation  is 
to  be  found  one  of  the  ways  in  which  the  Renaissance 
movement  became  an  important  force  in  ^he  other  great 
movements  of  the  time,  and  passed  into  the  general  revo- 
lution—social, political,  and  religious — with  which  mod- 
ern history  opened.  One  other  of  its  direct  results  brings 
it  into  close  connection  with  our  own  time  as  opening 
one  of  the  Hnes  of  our  greatest  advance. 

TJie  application  to  the  natural  and  physical  sciences 
of  the  new  methods  of  investigation:  which  the  Renais- 
sance had  brought  kito  use  was  not  made  so  early  as  it 
had  been  to  the  sciences  of  historical  and  philological 
criticism.  In  these  latter  fields  the  work  of  positive  ad- 
vance had  already  begun,  while  the  sciences  of  nature 
were  still  mainly  engaged  in  collecting  and  recovering 
the  facts  known  to  the  ancients,  the  work  which  Petrarch 
and  the  generation  following  him  represent  for  classical 
scholarship.  But  the  first  great  step  of  modern  science, 
and  one  of  the  greatest  ever  taken  in  the  importance  of  its 


376  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

results,  the  Copernican  theory  of  the  solar  system,  falls 
legitimately  within  the  history  of  the  Renaissance,  though 
Copernicus  did  not  publish  his  conclusions  until  1543. 

In  his  dedicatory  epistle  to  Pope  Paul  III,  Copernicus 
describes  the  almost  ideally  perfect  scientific  method 
which  he  had  followed  in  his  work.  This  method  he  may 
have  learned  in  Italy,  where  he  studied  about  ten  years, 
going  there  in  1496,  probably  the  year  in  which  Colet 
returned  to  England.  He  notes,  as  the  first  step,  his  dis- 
satisfaction with  the  old  theory,  then  his  search  of  ancient 
literature  to  see  if  another  theory  had  been  proposed,  his 
reflection  upon  the  suggestion  which  he  found  there  until 
it  assumed  the  form  of  a  definite  theory,  the  years  of 
observation  in  which  he  tested  the  theory  by  the  facts, 
and  finally  the  order  and  harmony  to  which  the  facts 
observed  were  reduced  by  the  theory.^  From  the  great 
advance  thus  made  by  Copernicus  the  progress  of  as- 
tronomy has  been  constant  and  rapid,  and  the  other 
sciences  were  not  far  behind. 

In  following  down  the  main  thread  of  intellectual  work 
which  runs  through  the  age  of  the  Renaissance,  we  have 
passed  over  various  facts  of  interest  in  themselves,  and 
perhaps  as  characteristic  of  it  as  those  which  have  been 
mentioned,  and  of  some  bearing  upon  later  times,  but 
which  can  now  receive  but  slight  notice. 

Of  value  in  illustration  of  the  perpetual  conflict  be- 
tween the  old  and  the  new,  if  we  could  go  into  the  details 
of  it,  would  be  the  struggle  of  the  new  methods  of  study 
and  their  results  for  a  place  in  the  universities  and  for 
general  acceptance.  The  universities  held  themselves 
obstinately  closed  to  the  new  methods  long  after  they 
had  achieved  brilliant  results  outside  their  walls.  When 
admission  was  at  last  grudgingly  allowed  a   few   repre- 

*  See  The  Yale  Review,  vol.  I  (1892),  p.  160,  note  2,  for  a  translation  of  this 
jart  of  his  letter. 


THE   RENAISSANCE  377 

sentatives  of  the  new  learning,  it  was  accompanied  with 
many  petty  slights  and  indignities — inaugural  addresses 
were  required  to  be  submitted  for  examination  before  de- 
livery, the  use  of  the  library  was  denied,  a  share  in  the 
government  of  the  university  was  refused,  or,  as  we 
should  say,  the  right  to  attend  the  meetings  of  the  faculty, 
or  no  place  was  given  the  new  studies  in  the  schedule  of 
lecture  hours.  The  church,  so  bound  up  with  the  scho- 
lastic system,  came  to  its  defence.  Greek  was  judged  a 
heretical  tongue.  No  one  should  lecture  on  the  New 
Testament,  it  was  declared,  without  a  previous  theolog- 
ical examination.  It  was  held  to  be  heresy  to  say  the 
Greek  or  Hebrew  text  reads  thus,  or  that  a  knowledge  of 
the  original  languages  is  necessary  to  interpret  the  Scrip- 
ture correctly. 

But  all  the  forces  that  make  history  were  with  the  new, 
and  it  could  not  be  held  back.  The  opening  years  of  the 
sixteenth  century  resounded  with  the  noise  of  its  attack, 
now  assured  of  victory,  and  led  by  Erasmus  and  Ulrich 
von  Hutten  and  others  of  almost  equal  name.  But 
hardly  had  the  new  learning  obtained  possession  of  the 
universities  before  it  degenerated  into  a  scholasticism  of 
its  own  almost  as  barren  as  the  old.  Cicero  became  as 
great  a  divinity  as  Aristotle,  and  the  letter  far  outweighed 
the  "spirit.  When  a  new  age  of  great  scientific  advance 
came  on,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  the  new  ideas  of 
that  time,  led  by  Descartes  and  Leibnitz  and  Locke  and 
Newton,  had  the  same  old  battle  to  fight  over  again. ^ 

Of  equal  interest  is  the  marked  sceptical  tendency  which 
accompanied   the   Renaissance,   especially  in  Italy,   and 

'  The  scholastic  tendency  and  habit  are  things  extremely  hard  to  work 
out  of  civilization,  or  more  accurately,  perhaps,  extremely  hard  to  bring 
into  their  proper  place.  Absorption  in  the  process,  and  in  the  immediate 
and  minute  result,  is  something  almost  impossible  to  resist,  because  of  the 
keen  enjoyment  which  comes  from  successful  investigation,  but  if  yielded 
to  it  is  a  fearful  bondage,  and  has  ruined  more  promising  intellectual  begin- 
nings than  all  the  logical  fallacies  combined. 


378  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

which  would  seem  to  be  an  almost  inevitable  attendant  of 
times  of  intellectual  progress.  The  unsettling  of  so  many 
old  beliefs,  some  of  them  apparently  closely  bound  up 
with  the  Christian  teaching,  tended  to  unsettle  all,  and 
to  produce  a  dispassionate  and  intellectual  scepticism 
which  in  the  Renaissance  age  is  to  be  carefully  distin- 
guished from  the  emotional  and  aesthetic  abandonment  of 
Christian  ethics  which  was  also  characteristic  of  the  time. 
Gemistos  Pletho,  in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
stated  his  behef  that  men  were  about  to  abandon  Chris- 
tianity for  some  form  of  paganism,  and  Pomponazzi  said, 
about  1520,  that  religions  have  their  day  of  inevitable 
decline  and  Christianity  is  no  exception  to  the  general 
rule,  and  that  signs  could  be  discerned  at  that  time 
of  approaching  dissolution  in  the  fabric  of  our  creed. ^ 
With  this  may  be  compared,  perhaps,  Voltaire's  remark, 
that  Christianity  would  not  survive  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. 

A  single  paragraph  is  so  utterly  inadequate  a  space  to 
give  to  the  product  of  the  Renaissance  age  in  the  fine 
arts,  that  all  mention  of  it  will  be  omitted  except  to  no- 
tice one  fact,  which  is  especially  important  from  our  point 
of  view,  the  fine  expression  which  it  gives  to  the  leading 
thought  of  the  Renaissance,  that  which  is  often  called 
"the  discovery  of  man" — the  supremacy  of  man  over 
nature — the  power  and  grace  and  beauty  of  the  ideal 
nature  above  and  beyond  mere  physical  beauty.  And 
the  value  of  this  expression  as  a  true  exponent  of  the 
Renaissance  age  lies  largely  in  the  fact  that  it  was  uncon- 
scious. 

Other  characteristic  products  of  the  Renaissance  age 
are  also  of  great  interest;  its  morals,  or  rather  its  want 
of  morals,  its  calm  and  unconscious  immorahty,  and 
often  brutality,  united  with  high  aesthetic  culture,  of 
which  we  have  so  remarkable  a  photograph  in  the  auto- 
*  Symonds,  Italian  Literature,  vol.  II,  p.  477. 


THE   RENAISSANCE  379 

biography  of  Cellini,  to  which  some  would  add  the  Prince 
of  ^MachiaveUi.  But  iNIachiavelli  is  one  of  the  typical 
men  of  the  time  in  more  ways  than  one.  He  unites  in 
himself  at  least  tv/o  of  its  most  marked  tendencies,  the 
political  and  the  scientific,  marvellous  both  for  the  ideal 
of  a  united  Italian  nation,  which  seems  to  be  the  main- 
spring of  his  thought,  and  for  the  example  which  he  gives 
us  of  the  calmness  and  total  absence  of  feeling  or  moral 
judgment  with  which  a  purely  scientific  mind  dissects  a 
diseased  organ  in  a  living  body. 

The  geographical  explorations  of  the  age  belong  partly 
to  the  history  of  commerce  and  have  been  considered 
there,  but  in  certain  aspects  of  them,  represented  best 
perhaps  by  Columbus,  they  are  peculiarly  the  results  of 
the  Renaissance  forces,  and  deserve  extended  notice  here 
both  as  an  outgrowth  of  the  age  and  as  an  essential  fac- 
tor in  its  influence  upon  the  future. 

The  belief  that  the  earth  is  round  had  never  been  en- 
tirely forgotten.  It  was  clearly  and  explicitly  taught  by 
the  ancient  scientists,  and,  though  in  the  times  of  super- 
stition and  darkness  a  popular  belief  that  the  earth  is 
flat  did  come  to  prevail,  it  was  never  held  even  in  those 
days  by  men  who  had  any  trace  of  knowledge  at  all,  or 
did  any  thinking  on  the  more  simple  facts  of  astronomy. 
With  the  growth  of  a  more  general  knowledge  of  an- 
tiquity, as  a  result  of  the  revival  of  learning,  the  ancient 
views  began  to  prevail  again.  In  1410  Peter  d'Ailly  had 
collected  the  opinions  of  the  ancients  on  the  subject  with 
an  occasional  opinion  from  a  medieval  source,  like  Roger 
Bacon,  in  his  book  called  Imago  Mundi,  a  book  which 
was  much  read  and  seems  to  have  had  a  decided  influence 
upon  Columbus.  Probably  a  still  earlier  and  more  de- 
cisive influence  upon  him  was  that  exerted  by  the  great 
Italian  scientist  of  the  time,  Toscannelli,  who  wrote  him, 
in  1474,  a  very  interesting  letter  calling  his  attention  in 
the  clearest  way  to  the  possibilities  which  lay  in  a  voyage 


380  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

to  the  west.^  Toscannelli's  ideas,  however,  were  based, 
like  Peter  d'Ailly's,  upon  a  study  of  the  ancients.  These 
views,  derived  from  the  ancient  science,  were  confirmed 
in  Columbus's  mind  by  some  facts  of  observation  which 
he  had  gathered  from  various  sources,  stories  of  sailors, 
traditions,  and  other  things  of  the  sort,  which  tended  to 
show  the  existence  of  land  to  the  west. 

These  facts  make  it  evident  then,  that,  just  as  in 
the  case  of  the  first  great  step  in  advance  in  physical 
science,  Copernicus's  theory  of  the  solar  system,  so  also 
in  the  first  great  enlargement  of  our  practical  knowledge 
of  the  earth  itself,  the  new  progress  takes  its  departure 
from  a  revived  knowledge  of  what  the  ancient  world  had 
learned,  and  that  the  modern  science  rests  upon  the 
ancient. 

But  not  merely  in  his  sources  of  knowledge  was  Colum- 
bus a  child  of  the  Renaissance.  He  was  still  more  clearly 
so  in  the  spirit  which  moved  and  sustained  him. 

The  thing  which  was  especially  new  and  original  with 
him,  and  which  led  to  his  great  success,  was  not  his 
knowledge  of  the  scientific  facts.  The  whole  scientific 
world  of  his  time  believed  in  these  as  thoroughly  as  he 
did.  But  it  was  this,  that,  beHeving  in  the  truth  of  the 
scientific  conclusion,  he  dared  to  act  upon  that  belief;  it 
was  his  strong  and  unwavering  self-confidence  and  daring 
which  carried  him  through  to  the  end.  In  this  he  was 
entirely  a  modern  man.  But  it  is  necessary  to  remem- 
ber that  no  modern  explorer  of  Central  Africa  or  of  the 
polar  lands  has  needed  to  be  quite  so  daring,  or  to  have 
so  obstinate  a  spirit  of  determination  and  pluck  and  will- 
ingness to  meet  the  unexpected  and  overcome  it.  The 
modern  man  has  a  sort  of  confidence  in  the  validity  of 
science  which  was  not  possible  for  Columbus,  and,  a  thing 
which  is  still  more  to  the  point,  he  has  a  knowledge  of 

'  A  translation  of  this  letter  is  given  in  Fiske's  Discovery  oj  America,  voL 
5>  P-  356,  and  the  original  in  an  appendix. 


THE   RENAISSANCE  381 

the  probable  dangers  which  he  will  have  to  face,  such  as 
Columbus  could  not  have. 

In  Columbus  the  Renaissance  age  is  seen  not  only  to 
have  recovered  the  knowledge  upon  which  a  new  progress 
could  be  founded,  but  also  it  had  produced  the  new  spirit, 
the  firm  confidence  of  man  in  his  own  powers  and  in  his 
mastery  of  nature,  which  was  both  to  discover  a  new 
world  in  geography  and  to  create  a  new  world  in  ideas. 
Hardly  any  man,  indeed,  who  lived  in  those  days  is  so 
complete  a  representative  of  the  age  as  Columbus.  It 
was  a  mixed  age,  old  and  new  mingled  together  in  strange 
proportions  and  motley  results;  old  superstitions  and 
medieval  ideas  side  by  side  with  scientific  criticism  and 
modern  beliefs.  And  so  it  was  in  the  case  of  Columbus. 
He  was  a  modern  man  with  a  strong  faith  in  the  results 
of  science  and  a  vigorous  self-reliance.  But  he  was  also  a 
medieval  man,  holding  to  the  scholastic  theology,  be- 
lieving that  the  prophets  specifically  foretold  his  enter- 
prise, and  apparently  led  to  his  undertaking  quite  as  much 
by  the  desire  to  get  the  means  for  a  new  crusade  to  rescue 
the  Holy  Sepulchre  as  by  scientific  or  commercial  motives. 

The  effects  of  Columbus's  expedition  were  not  confined 
to  science  or  to  commerce.  His  was  a  most  revolutionary 
discovery,  and  its  intellectual  results  were  as  great  as  its 
practical  ones.  They  were,  perhaps,  greater  than  those 
which  have  followed  any  other  discovery  of  the  sort. 
With  them  can  be  compared  only  the  enlargement  of 
mind  which  followed  such  scientific  events  as  Newton's 
publications,  or,  in  the  present  century,  Lyell's  proof  of 
the  geologic  ages,  or  Darwin's  explanation  of  the  method 
of  evolution. 

Other  events  of  the  same  sort  combined  to  produce  the 
same  character  of  mind  and  to  make  it  the  prevailing 
intellectual  tone  of  the  times — the  explorations  of  the 
Portuguese,  the  invention  of  printing,  the  discoveries  of 
new  classical  material,  the  wide  enlargement  of  the  field 


382  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

of  historical  knowledge,  and  the  overthrow  of  old  beliefs 
in  every  direction.  These  events  led  not  merely  to  a 
rapid  broadening  of  thought  and  mental  experience,  but 
also  to  a  hospitality  towards  new  ideas  which  is  charac- 
teristically modern. 

The  intellectual  atmosphere  which  the  Renaissance 
produced,  and  which  was  an  essential  prerequisite  of  the 
Reformation,  can  be  compared,  indeed,  to  notliing  so 
well  as  to  that  of  our  own  age.  In  spirit,  in  ambitions, 
and  in  methods,  in  openness  of  mind  and  in  expectation 
of  a  greater  future  it  was  the  same.  The  obstructive 
conservatism  with  which  it  had  to  contend  was  identical 
with  that  of  to-day,  and  the  same  weapons  were  in  use 
on  both  sides.  In  actual  attainment  and  insight,  of 
course,  it  was  not  the  same.  The  conditions  were  more 
narrow  and  the  tools  it  had  to  work  with  were  far  inferior. 
But  that  is  a  fact  of  relatively  little  importance,  and  if 
we  would  gain  a  right  understanding  of  the  age,  and  of 
its  permanent  contributions  to  history,  we  can  do  it  best, 
perhaps,  by  comparing  it,  under  its  own  conditions,  with 
the  spirit  and  work  of  to-day. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE   PAPACY   IN   THE   NEW   AGE 

In  the  tenth  chapter  we  followed  the  conflict  between 
the  church  and  the  empire  to  its  close  in  the  thirteenth 
century.  The  papacy  had  come  out  of  that  conflict  ap- 
parently victorious  over  its  only  rival.  Frederick  II  had 
failed,  and  no  new  emperor  had  arisen  to  take  his  place 
with  a  power  which  could  be  at  all  dangerous  to  the 
pope's. 

But  at  the  moment  of  this  victory  a  new  enemy  ap- 
peared in  the  field.  The  growth  of  commerce,  and  the 
other  results  which  followed  from  the  crusades,  had  al- 
ready changed  the  character  of  the  age,  and  the  general 
attitude  of  mind  toward  the  papacy.  It  had  raised  the 
general  level  of  intelligence  and  created  a  new  feeling  of 
individual  self-reliance  in  large  portions  of  the  popula- 
tion, even  before  the  age  of  the  revival  of  learning  proper. 
The  gradual  organization  of  the  modern  nations,  and 
their  progress,  step  by  step,  towards  definite  constitu- 
tions and  true  national  life,  had  been  accompanied  with 
a  growth  of  the  spirit  of  political  independence,  and  the 
beginnings,  at  least,  of  a  genuine  feeling  of  patriotism.  It 
was  impossible  for  the  political  and  intellectual  world, 
which  was  forming  under  these  influences,  and  which  was 
animated  by  this  new  spirit,  to  submit  tamely  to  those 
pretensions  of  universal  political  supervision  which  had 
been  asserted  by  Gregory  VII  and  by  Innocent  III  and 
which  the  papacy  still  claimed  in  even  more  extreme  lan- 
guage. 

383 


384  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Isolated  cases,  due  to  these  new  influences,  of  a  more 
or  less  determined  resistance  to  these  pretensions  are 
scattered  through  the  thirteenth  century  in  the  history  of 
various  states.  In  the  case  of  exceptionally  strong  states 
or  sovereigns,  some  are  to  be  found  even  in  the  twelfth. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  occurred  an  instance 
of  this  resistance  which  became  of  universal  importance, 
and  which,  in  the  final  consequences  that  followed  from 
it,  united  all  the  new  forces  of  the  time  in  a  grand  attack 
upon  the  papacy,  to  destroy  its  political  power,  and  even 
to  change  the  character  of  its  ecclesiastical  rule.  This 
was  the  conflict  between  Philip  the  Fair  of  France  and 
Pope  Boniface  VIII. 

Boniface  VIII  was  elected  pope  in  1294,  after  he  had 
procured  by  his  intrigues  the  abdication  of  the  weak  and 
unworldly  Celestin  V.  He  was  a  man  of  exactly  opposite 
character — hasty  and  obstinate,  and  with  the  most  ex- 
treme views  of  the  rights  of  the  papacy  over  all  other 
powers  in  the  world.  Opportunities  were  offered  him, 
one  after  another,  for  the  actual  assertion  of  these  rights 
in  almost  every  country  of  Europe,  and  if  he  could  have 
carried  through  successfully  the  things  which  he  at- 
tempted, the  papal  empire  would  have  existed  in  reahty. 

England  and  France  were,  at  the  time,  in  the  midst  of 
that  interminable  series  of  wars  which  grew  out  of  the 
attempts  of  the  French  kings  to  absorb  in  their  growing 
state  the  territories  of  their  independent  vassals,  of  which 
the  kings  of  England  held  so  large  a  share.  Phihp  IV, 
the  Fair,  was  one  of  the  ablest  of  the  Capetian  kings  who 
were  carrying  on  this  inherited  policy,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  one  of  the  most  unscrupulous  and  determined. 
The  necessities  of  the  war  compelled  both  him  and  Ed- 
ward I  of  England  to  demand  taxes  from  the  clergy  of 
their  kingdoms  in  a  more  regular  way  than  had  ever  H<^n 
done  before.  It  was  near  the  time,  as  we  know,  oi  !« 
completion  of  that  economic  revolution  which  substituted 


THE   PAPACY   IN   THE   NEW  AGE  3S"5 

money  for  cruder  forms  of  payment  in  produce  and  ser- 
vices. Taxation  was  consequently  beginning  to  assume 
a  great  importance  among  the  resources  of  a  state.  The 
clergy,  exempt  by  universal  consent,  in  view  of  their 
religious  services  to  the  state,  from  personal  military  ser- 
vice, had  insisted,  also,  upon  an  exemption  from  taxation 
unless  the  tax  were  specially  sanctioned  by  themselves 
or  by  the  pope.  But  the  large  proportion  of  the  landed 
wealth  of  the  country  which  was  in  their  hands  made  the 
question  of  their  submission,  like  the  other  classes,  to 
the  independent  taxing  power  of  the  state,  a  very  serious 
one  for  the  new  governments,  especially  for  one  which 
was  endeavoring  to  attain  independence  of  the  feudal 
nobles,  and  neither  Phihp  nor  Edward  was  disposed  to 
allow  this  exemption.  Boniface  VIII,  appealed  to  by 
some  of  the  clergy  in  support  of  their  rights,  issued  his 
bull,  ''Clericis  laicos,"  in  which,  in  the  strongest  terms, 
he  forbade  any  prince  or  state  to  collect  any  unauthor- 
ized taxes  from  the  clergy,  and  commanded  all  prelates  to 
resist  such  extortion  to  the  utmost. 

The  struggle  with  Phihp,  begun  in  this  way,  involved 
before  its  close  more  than  one  other  point  concerning 
the  right  of  the  pope  to  interfere  in  the  internal  affairs  of 
the  state.  They  were  the  old  claims  of  the  papacy  pushed 
to  an  extreme  point.  The  bull,  "Unam  Sanctam,"  issued 
in  1302,  gives  expression  in  the  fullest  and  plainest  terms 
to  the  theory  of  papal  supremacy  and  the  grounds  on 
which  it  was  made  to  rest.  It  says:  "When  the  apostles 
said,  'Behold  here  are  two  swords!'  .  .  .  the  Lord  did 
not  reply  that  this  was  too  much,  but  enough.  Surely 
he  who  denies  that  the  temporal  sword  is  in  the  power  of 
Peter  wrongly  interprets  the  word  of  the  Lord  when  He 
says:  'Put  up  thy  sword  in  its  scabbard.'  Both  swords, 
the  spiritual  and  the  material,  therefore,  are  in  the  power 
of  the  church;  the  one,  indeed,  to  be  wielded  for  the 
church,  the  other  by  the  church;  the  one  by  the  hand  of 


386  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  priest,  the  other  by  the  hand  of  kings  and  knights, 
but  at  the  will  and  sufferance  of  the  priest."  .  .  .  "For, 
the  truth  bearing  witness,  the  spiritual  power  has  to  estab- 
lish the  earthly  power,  and  to  judge  it  if  it  be  not  good. 
Thus  concerning  the  church  and  the  ecclesiastical  power 
is  verified  the  prophecy  of  Jeremiah:  'See,  I  have  this  day 
set  thee  over  the  nations  and  over  the  kingdoms,'  and 
the  other  things  which  follow.  Therefore  if  the  earthly 
power  err  it  shall  be  judged  by  the  spiritual  power;  but 
if  the  lesser  spiritual  power  err,  by  the  greater.  But  if  the 
greatest,  it  can  be  judged  by  God  alone,  not  by  man,  the 
apostle  bearing  witness.  A  spiritual  man  judges  all 
things,  but  he  himself  is  judged  by  no  one.  This  author- 
ity, moreover,  even  though  it  is  given  to  man  and  exer- 
cised through  man,  is  not  human  but  rather  divine,  being 
given  by  divine  lips  to  Peter  and  founded  on  a  rock  for 
him  and  his  successors  through  Christ  himself,  whom  he 
has  confessed;  the  Lord  himself  saying  to  Peter:  'Whatso- 
ever thou  shaft  bind,'  etc.  Whoever,  therefore,  resists 
this  power,  thus  ordained  by  God,  resists  the  ordination 
of  God."  .  .  .  "Indeed  we  declare,  announce,  and  de- 
fine, that  it  is  altogether  necessary  to  salvation  for  every 
human  creature  to  be  subject  to  the  Roman  pontiff."^ 

There  was  nothing  particularly  new  in  these  preten- 
sions. They  had  been  maintained  by  the  church  for  the 
last  two  hundred  years.  But  they  were  expressed  in 
clearer  and  stronger  terms  than  ever  before,  and  the  line 
was  drawn  sharply  between  the  old  claims  of  the  papacy 
and  the  new  spirit  of  the  nations.  The  significant  thing 
about  the  contest  was  the  answer  which  the  nations  made 
to  these  assertions. 

Philip  seems  to  have  realized  the  new  force  which  he 
had  behind  him,  and  he  appealed  directly  to  the  nation. 
In   1302,   as  we  know,   he  summoned   the  first  Estates 

'  Translation  of  Henderson,  Hist.  Docs,  of  the  Middle  Ages,  p.  435,  where, 
ako,  a  translation  of  the  bull  "Clericis  laicos"  may  be  found. 


THE    PAPACY   IN   THE   NEW   AGE  387 

General  of  France,  and  submitted  to  them  the  papal  de- 
mands. Each  of  the  three  Estates  responded  separately, 
supporting  the  king  and  denying  the  right  of  the  pope  to 
any  supremacy  over  the  state.  The  clergy,  perhaps,  took 
this  position  somewhat  reluctantly  and  with  a  divided 
allegiance,  but  it  illustrates  in  a  striking  way  the  strength 
of  public  opinion  in  favor  of  the  state  that  they  did  so  at 
all,  and  many  of  them  undoubtedly  supported  the  king 
from  real  conviction. 

The  result  in  England  was  the  same.  It  has  been  said 
by  some  that  on  the  point  of  taxation  Edward  yielded 
to  the  pope,  but  this  is  certainly  a  misunderstanding  of 
the  case.  It  is  true  that,  in  1297,  he  effected  a  temporary 
reconciliation  with  the  church,  but  immediately  afterwards 
he  exercised  again  his  asserted  right  of  taxation,  and  when 
he  finally  abandoned  it  he  yielded  not  to  the  church  but 
to  the  general  opposition  throughout  the  nation  to  the 
exercise  of  an  unconstitutional  power,  and  agreed  that  no 
orders  in  the  state  should  be  taxed  except  by  their  own 
consent.  This  is  a  very  different  thing  from  recognizing 
the  claims  of  the  bull  "Clericis  laicos,"  which  he  distinctly 
refused  to  do.  In  1299,  when  the  pope  asserted  that 
Scotland  was  a  fief  of  the  papacy  and  must  not  be  at- 
tacked by  the  EngHsh,  Edward  showed  no  disposition 
to  yield  his  rights,  and  he  had  the  support  of  the  king- 
dom in  his  resistance. 

One  incident  of  this  contest  must  not  be  omitted,  for  it 
is  the  beginning  of  an  idea  which  came  in  time  to  be  of 
the  utmost  importance.  Philip  made  a  formal  appeal 
from  the  pope,  on  the  grounds  of  Boniface's  heresy  and 
immorality  of  life,  to  a  general  council  and  a  more  lawful 
pope.  The  appeal,  at  the  moment,  came  to  nothing,  but 
the  idea  that  a  council  had  the  right  to  judge  of  the 
legitimacy  of  a  pope  was  destined  in  the  next  age  to  be 
the  starting-point  of  a  most  promising  and  hopeful  at- 
tempt to  reconstruct  the  constitution  of  the  church. 


388  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

The  reign  of  Boniface  came  to  an  end  with  his  death, 
in  1303,  as  the  result  of  an  assault  upon  his  person  by 
his  enemies.  He  had  failed  in  every  attempt  which  he 
had  made  to  control  poHtical  affairs  wherever  the  new 
national  spirit  had  begun  to  be  ahve.  It  was  the  close 
of  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  papacy  indeed.  The  old 
triumphs  of  the  church  over  the  state  could  no  longer  be 
repeated.  The  forces  of  modern  politics,  which  reduced 
the  papacy  from  the  imperial  position  for  which  it  had 
striven  to  a  political  insignificance  scarcely  less  than  that 
of  the  modern  Holy  Roman  Empire,  were  already  be- 
ginning to  stir. 

After  the  death  of  Boniface,  Philip  IV  determined  to 
prevent  any  recurrence  of  such  a  conflict  in  the  future, 
by  subjecting  the  papacy  directly  to  his  own  power,  and, 
after  a  brief  interval,  the  reign  of  Benedict  XI,  he  se- 
cured the  election  of  a  French  prelate,  Clement  V,  and 
the  papacy  passed  for  a  period  of  seventy  years  under 
French  influence.  The  outward  sign  of  this  was  the  re- 
moval of  the  residence  of  the  popes,  and  so  the  practical 
capital  of  the  ecclesiastical  world,  to  Avignon,  a  city  of 
Provence  on  the  borders  of  France.  The  college  of  car- 
dinals was  filled  with  French  prelates,  and  during  a  part 
of  the  time  the  kings  of  France,  or  the  French  kings  of 
Naples,  almost  openly  controlled  the  papal  policy. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  the  result.  International 
politics  in  the  modern  sense  had  not  yet  arisen,  but  the 
first  faint  traces  were  then  to  be  seen  of  the  conflicting 
interests,  which  were  in  the  course  of  time,  when  the  in- 
ternal affairs  of  the  states  had  been  brought  into  more 
settled  shape,  to  lead  to  modern  inter-state  politics.  The 
nations  were  beginning  to  be  jealous  of  one  another  and 
to  fear  encroachment.  At  least  each  government  had 
objects  which  it  was  eagerly  striving  to  accomplish  within 
its  own  territories,  which  other  states  might  aid  or  with 
which  they  might  interfere.     So  long  as  the  papacy  con- 


THE   PAPACY   IN   THE   NEW   AGE  389 

tinued  to  occupy  the  position  of  an  umpire,  above  all 
the  states  and  not  immediately  under  the  influence  of 
any  one  of  them,  and  so  long  as  it  had  no  manifest  political 
interests  of  its  own  to  serve,  it  might  retain  something 
of  its  imperial  position.  The  spirit  of  the  new  nations 
might  resent  its  direct  interference  in  their  local  affairs, 
but  they  were  not  so  Ukely  to  resent,  indeed  they  would 
be  often  glad  to  avail  themselves  of  its  international 
influence.  The  true  policy  for  the  papacy  to  pursue, 
after  the  rise  of  the  nations,  was  to  keep  itself  as 
free  as  it  could  from  all  special  politics,  and  to  im- 
prove and  strengthen  in  every  possible  way  its  interna- 
tional power. 

The  papacy  at  Avignon  was,  on  the  contrary,  virtually 
a  complete  abdication  of  this  position.  It  was  almost  as 
sudden  and  final  a  destruction  of  the  imperial  power  of 
the  popes  as  the  ruin  of  the  Hohenstaufen  family  had 
been  of  the  imperial  position  of  the  German  kings. ^  As 
soon  as  the  other  states  of  Europe  saw,  or  thought  they 
saw,  that  the  popes  were  under  the  control  of  France, 
that  their  undisputed  ecclesiastical  rights,  and  their 
claims  in  other  directions  were  being  used  to  serve  the 
ends  of  French  politics,  that  the  popes  were  really  the 
tools  of  the  kings  of  France,  then  the  national  spirit  was 
roused  at  once  in  opposition  to  papal  interference,  and 
the  popes  lost  even  the  respect  and  obedience  of  the 
other  states.     The  place  in  general  European  affairs,  as  a 

*  No  more  is  meant  by  this  statement  than  is  said.  It  is  not  meant  that 
the  papacy  ceased  to  be  a  factor  of  importance  in  international  politics,  as 
one  among  states,  active  in  the  formation  of  combinations,  sought  as  an 
ally,  or  interfering  with  success  in  the  internal  affairs  of  individual  states. 
But  these  things  constitute  an  influence  very  different  from  that  imperial 
power,  as  an  arbiter  above  states,  which  the  medieval  papacy  came  near  to 
attaining.  This  distinction  between  an  imperial  position  for  papacy  or  em- 
pire, and  action  as  a  member  of  a  virtual  federation  of  nations,  on  even 
terms  with  others,  is  fundamental  and  necessary  to  any  understanding  of 
the  changed  conditions  of  modem  as  compared  with  medieval  international 
politicst 


39©  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

power  above  states,  from  which  the  papacy  descended 
when  it  went  to  Avignon  it  was  never  able  to  recover. 
This  was  in  reaHty  due  of  course  to  the  growth  of  new 
powers  and  new  conditions,  a  new  general  atmosphere, 
which  made  it  impossible  to  return  to  the  old,  but  the 
historical  facts  which  brought  these  new  forces  to  bear 
upon  the  papal  demands  were  the  defeat  of  Boniface  in 
his  conflict  with  Philip,  and  the  consequent  "Babylonian 
captivity"  at  Avignon. 

England,  for  example,  was  at  war  with  France  during 
nearly  the  whole  of  this  period,  and  the  feeling  that  the 
papacy  was  the  close  ally  of  her  enemy  had  something 
beyond  question  to  do  with  the  repeated  and  stringent 
measures  which  were  taken  in  the  reign  of  Edward  III, 
to  limit  the  right  of  the  pope  to  interfere  even  in  the 
ecclesiastical  affairs  of  the  country,  in  the  statute  of 
"provisors"  against  his  right  to  make  appointments  to 
English  benefices,  and  of  "praemunire"  against  appeals  to 
the  papal  courts,  and  in  the  refusal  of  the  nation  to  pay 
any  longer  the  annual  tribute  which  was  the  mark  of  the 
feudal  dependence  of  England  upon  the  papacy,  estab- 
lished by  the  homage  of  King  John. 

Still  more  clearly  does  this  appear  in  the  case  of  Ger- 
many. When  the  Avignonese  popes,  John  XXII  and 
Benedict  XII,  asserted  their  right  to  decide  a  disputed 
election,  or  to  determine  the  right  to  the  throne  of  a 
regularly  elected  candidate,  manifestly  in  the  interest  of 
the  political  ambition  of  the  king  of  France,  then  even 
weakened  and  divided  Germany  was  aroused  by  the  spirit 
of  national  independence  and  rejected  with  decision  the 
pope's  dictation.  The  electors  drew  up  a  solemn  dec- 
laration, in  1338,  which  in  the  same  year  received  the 
sanction  of  a  numerously  attended  diet  at  Frankfort,  re- 
citing that  the  king  derived  his  right  to  rule  from  God 
alone  and  not  from  the  pope,  and  that  his  regular  election 
carried  with  it  the  full  power  to  exercise  all  the  preroga- 


THE   PAPACY   IN   THE   NEW  AGE  391 

tives  of  king  and  emperor,  whatever  rights  of  crowning 
and  consecration  might  justly  belong  to  the  pope.^ 

But  other  results  of  the  captivity  at  Avignon  threatened 
the  papacy  with  a  far  more  serious  disaster  than  the  loss 
of  its  political  influence.  Grave  discontent  began  to 
arise,  and  earnest  criticism  began  to  be  heard  within  the 
church  itself  against  the  papal  position  and  policy.  The 
progress  of  events  increased  this  feeling  and  gave  it 
stronger  and  more  manifest  grounds  until,  for  a  short 
time,  it  threatened  to  overthrow  even  the  ecclesiastical 
supremacy  of  the  pope,  and  to  revolutionize  the  entire 
constitution  of  the  church. 

Increasing  luxury  and  nepotism  were  characteristic  of 
the  papacy  at  Avignon.  The  wasteful  extravagance  of  a 
court,  far  more  like  that  of  a  prodigal  sovereign  of  the 
world  than  of  a  Christian  bishop,  demanded  an  increased 
income  to  meet  its  abnormally  heavy  expenses.  The  war 
which  the  popes  were  carrying  on  in  Italy  was  exceedingly 
costly.  The  ordinary  revenues  would  not  suffice.  They 
had  indeed  proved  insufficient  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
from  general  l&nancial  causes  which  still  continued  to 
operate,  and  the  ingenuity  of  successive  popes  needed  to 
be  exercised  to  devise  new  forms  of  taxation,  or  rather 
new  expedients  by  which  money  could  be  exacted  from 
the  clergy  of  Europe.  This  necessity  led  to  a  great  en- 
largement of  the  papal  right  of  appointment  to  local 
benefices  throughout  the  Catholic  world,  a  method  of 
extortion  which  was  doubly  offensive,  not  merely  because 
of  the  large  sums  thus  exacted  in  annates  and  other  fees, 
but  also  because  of  its  interference  with  the  independence 
and  self-government  of  the  local  churches.  The  practice 
excited  no  little  outcry  and  opposition.  It  had  a  de- 
cisive influence  in  leading  to  the  adoption  of  the  statutes 
against  such  practices  in  England  under  Edward  III,  and 

*  There  is  a  translation  in  Henderson,  p.  437,  of  the  document  adopted  at 
Frankfort. 


392  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

elsewhere  ecclesiastical  bodies  made  strong  protest  and 
drew  up  formal  declarations  against  the  rights  assumed 
by  the  popes. 

This  spirit  of  discontent  and  criticism  was  strengthened 
from  another  side.  Earnest  minds  could  not  fail  to  con- 
demn, as  contrary  to  a  genuine  Christianity,  the  luxury 
and  immorality  which  prevailed  at  Avignon  and  influ- 
enced the  whole  church  from  that  centre.  WycHffe's 
party  in  England  drew  no  little  aid  from  the  prevalence 
of  this  feeling.  But  an  earlier  rebellion  in  the  church 
on  this  point  had  been  attended  with  even  more  extreme 
views.  A  body  within  the  Franciscan  order,  earnestly 
devoted  to  a  simple  and  spiritual  life,  had  adopted  an 
idea  which  implied  that,  following  the  example  of  Christ 
and  the  apostles,  "evangelical  poverty"  was  a  Christian 
duty  demanded  of  all  the  clergy,  and  with  this  they  held 
other  equally  revolutionary  notions.  Condemned  by  the 
popes  as  heretics,  the  more  irreconcilable  of  them,  with 
some  others  of  like  mind,  took  refuge  with  Lewis  of  Ba- 
varia, who  gathered  about  him  in  this  way  a  small  literary 
army,  far  more  logical  and  thorough  in  their  opposition 
to  the  papal  demands  than  he  was  himself.  In  his  ser- 
vice, the  ablest  of  these  writers,  William  of  Ockham  and 
Marsiglio  of  Padua,  proclaimed  doctrines  which  were 
revolutionary  not  merely  of  the  world's  ecclesiastical 
government  of  that  time,  but  also  of  its  political  gov- 
ernments, and  which  were  in  many  remarkable  ways 
anticipations  of  ideas  which  have  come  to  prevail  in  mod- 
ern times.  On  the  special  point  at  issue  between  Lewis 
and  the  pope,  they  denied  in  the  clearest  terms  the  right 
of  the  pope  to  centre  in  himself  the  powers  of  the  church, 
and  maintained  the  superiority  of  a  general  council. 

During  the  residence  of  the  popes  at  Avignon,  there 
was,  therefore,  a  growing  dissatisfaction  and  spirit  of 
criticism  both  within  and  without  the  ranks  of  the  clergy, 
a  disposition  to  question  the  right  of  the  papacy  as  an 


THE   PAPACY   IN   THE   NEW   AGE  393 

absolute  monarchy  over  the  church,  as  well  as  to  deny  its 
right  to  assume  the  direction  of  political  affairs.  With 
the  rise  of  this  spirit  there  were  heard  also,  a  still  more 
significant  fact,  clear  demands  for  a  general  council  to 
judge  and  control  the  pope.  But  as  yet  these  signs  of 
coming  civil  war  had  been  seen  only  here  and  there, 
connected  with  special  cases  of  dispute  between  the  pope 
and  some  particular  opponent.  Men's  minds  had  been 
somewhat  familiarized  with  these  new  theories  of  church 
government,  as  possibilities,  but  there  was  as  yet  no  gen- 
eral acceptance  of  them,  no  European  demand  for  a  uni- 
versal council  to  exercise  supreme  functions  in  the  church, 
and  to  take  the  papacy  under  its  control.  It  was  the 
Great  Schism,  and  the  events  connected  with  it,  the 
period  in  church  history  which  followed  the  Babylonian 
captivity  at  Avignon,  which  transformed  these  isolated 
demands  for  a  general  council,  used  as  a  weapon  in 
special  contests  with  the  papacy,  as  a  threat  to  be  held 
over  the  pope,  into  a  strong  demand  of  all  Europe  which 
could  not  be  resisted. 

It  was  the  condition  of  affairs  in  Italy,  rather  than 
any  sense  of  duty  to  the  church  universal,  which  moved 
Gregory  XI  in  1377  to  return  from  Avignon  to  Rome. 
The  absence  of  the  popes  had  thrown  the  papal  states  into 
anarchy  and  confusion.  Revolution  and  counter-revo- 
lution had  followed  one  another  in  rapid  succession,  now 
democratic  in  spirit  and  again  papal — it  was  in  this 
period  that  the  experiments  of  Rienzo  were  made — and 
Gregory  XI  feared  that  his  power  in  Italy  would  be  en- 
tirely lost  if  he  did  not  attempt  its  recovery  in  person. 
But  the  French  cardinals  were  not  reconciled  to  the 
change.  They  were  not  willing  to  leave  the  luxury  and 
quiet  of  Avignon  and  to  subject  themselves  to  the  tumul- 
tuous rudeness  of  Rome.  The  loud  demand  of  the  Romans 
that  an  Italian  pope  should  be  elected,  on  the  death  of 
Gregory  XI  in  1378,  and  popular  tumults  connected  with 


394  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  election  of  Urban  VI,  gave  them  an  opportunity  to 
assert  that  the  election  had  been  forced  upon  them  by 
bodily  fear  and  was  not  therefore  a  free  and  legal  elec- 
tion. On  this  ground  they  withdrew  from  Rome — in  the 
end  all  the  cardinals  who  had  elected  Urban  abandoned 
him_ — and  elected  one  of  their  own  number  pope,  who 
took  the  name  of  Clement  VII,  and  returned  to  Avignon. 
Urban  on  his  side  created  a  number  of  Italian  cardinals, 
and  the  papacy  had  now  two  heads  as  well  as  two  capitals. 
The  nations  of  Europe  chose  sides  almost  solely  as  their 
political  interests  led  them.  France,  of  course,  supported 
Clement;  England,  of  course,  supported  Urban.  Naples 
could  not  help  opposing  the  Roman  pope,  nor  Germany 
the  pope  who  was  under  the  influence  of  France.  There 
were  not  merely  two  popes  and  two  capitals,  but  the  whole 
church  was  rent  in  twain,  and  the  question  whether  there 
was  in  the  church,  as  distinguished  from  the  pope,  a 
power  to  reorganize  its  government  and  to  compel  even 
the  papacy  to  submit  to  reformation,  was  forced  upon 
the  attention  of  every  man  who  had  any  interest  in  public 
affairs. 

In  the  prevailing  temper  of  the  time,  the  discussion  of 
this  question  showed  a  rapid  tendency  to  break  with  the 
traditions  and  historical  theories  of  the  church.  It  was  a 
time  when  the  ties  of  the  church  universal  seem  to  have 
been  loosed  in  every  direction  and  new  and  strange  no- 
tions in  theology  and  concerning  practical  religion  made 
their  appearance  on  every  hand.  Wild  dreams  and  ideas 
that  would  one  day  bear  good  fruit  were  mingled  together 
— Wycliffe  and  the  Beguines,  the  Brethren  of  the  Com- 
mon Life  and  the  Flagellants,  and  many  forgotten  names 
of  the  sort,  good  and  bad.  It  was  a  favorable  atmosphere 
for  the  rapid  growth  of  revolutionary  schemes  for  the 
settlement  of  the  difficulty  which  the  Schism  forced  upon 
the  church.  The  whole  tendency  for  centuries  in  the 
ecclesiastical  world  had  been  to  centre  the  life  and  power 


THE  PAPACY  IN  THE  NEW  AGE  395 

of  the  church  more  and  more  completely  in  the  pope. 
The  doctrine  of  papal  infallibility  and  of  the  pope's  abso- 
lute headship  of  the  church  may  not  have  been  so  expHcitly 
stated  as  a  necessary  article  of  faith  as  now,  but  it  was 
practically  no  less  clearly  held  or  firmly  believed  by  the 
general  body  of  churchmen.  In  the  circumstances  of 
the  time,  this  historical  tendency  was  forgotten  by  many. 
It  was  argued  that  it  mattered  little  how  many  popes 
there  were.  There  might  be  ten  or  twelve.  Each  land 
might  have  its  own  independent  pope.  It  might  be  the 
will  of  God  that  the  papacy  should  remain  permanently 
divided.^ 

But  the  ideas  which  won  the  general  acceptance  of 
Europe  were  not  so  extreme  as  these,  though  really  as 
revolutionary.  A  group  of  earnest  and  able  men,  of 
whom  John  Gerson,  of  the  University  of  Paris,  is  the 
best  known,  began  to  advance  ideas  which,  though  they 
broke  with  the  special  form  which  the  unity  of  the  church 
had  been  assuming  in  the  headship  of  the  pope,  did  not 
break  with  the  real  spirit  of  that  unity.  They  conse- 
quently furnished  a  more  solid  doctrinal  foundation  for 
the  new  plan  of  reformation  than  was  possible  for  the 
wilder  ideas  of  others,  and  commanded  general  approval 
for  it.  According  to  these  theories,  the  church  universal 
is  superior  to  the  pope.  It  may  elect  him  if  the  cardinals 
fail  to  do  so;  it  may  depose  one  whom  the  cardinals  have 
elected.  The  pope  is  an  officer  of  the  church,  and,  if  he 
abuses  his  office,  he  may  be  treated  as  an  enemy,  as  a 
temporal  prince  would  be  in  a  similar  case.  The  highest 
expression  of  the  unity  and  power  of  this  church  universal 
is  a  general  council.  This  is  superior  to  the  pope,  may 
meet  legitimately  without  his  summons,  and  he  must 
obey  its  decisions. 

1  The  first  volume  of  Pastor's  Geschichie  der  Papsle,  which  contains  a  very 
valuable  account  of  this  crisis  in  the  history  of  the  papacy  from  the  Catholic 
point  of  view,  has  been  translated  into  English. 


396'  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

The  first  attempt  to  carry  into  practice  the  appeal  from 
the  pope  to  a  general  council,  and  so  to  end  the  Schism, 
was  in  the  Council  of  Pisa,  in  1409.  Long  negotiations 
for  the  purpose  of  restoring  peace  to  the  church  in  some 
other  way  had  failed.  The  attempt  to  get  both  popes  to 
abdicate,  and  so  make  way  for  the  election  of  a  new  pope 
for  the  whole  church,  had  shortly  before  seemed  about  to 
succeed.  Each  of  the  two  popes — Benedict  XIII,  of 
Avignon,  and  Gregory  XII,  of  Rome — had  been  elected 
under  solemn  promise  to  resign  if  his  opponent  could  be 
brought  to  do  the  same.  But  neither  was  willing  to  take 
the  first  step,  and  it  soon  became  evident  that  the  Schism 
could  not  be  healed  in  this  way.  France  then  withdrew 
its  support  from  Benedict,  who  took  refuge  in  Spain.  The 
majority  of  the  cardinals  of  both  popes  abandoned  their 
masters  and  united  in  a  call  for  a  general  council  to  as- 
semble in  Pisa  in  1409. 

But  the  Council  of  Pisa  did  not  command  universal 
acceptance.  Political  and  other  considerations  had  re- 
tained a  few  states  in  the  obedience  of  each  of  the  popes. 
The  council  was  itself  injudicious  and  hasty,  and  did  not 
sufficiently  fortify  its  position  against  obvious  objections. 
It  deposed  the  two  contending  popes  and  sanctioned  the 
election  of  a  new  one  by  the  cardinals  present,  Alexan- 
der V — who  died  in  1410,  and  was  succeeded  by  John 
XXIII — but  it  separated  without  providing  for  the  real 
reformation  of  the  church. 

The  situation  was  in  reality  made  worse  by  this  first 
attempt  to  heal  the  Schism  than  it  had  been  before. 
There  were  now  three  popes,  each  claiming  to  be  the  sole 
rightful  pope,  and  each  recognized  as  such  by  some  part 
of  the  church.  But  the  council  of  Pisa  had  served  the 
great  purpose  of  bringing  out,  more  clearly  than  ever 
before,  the  arguments  on  which  its  right  to  act  rested, 
and  of  convincing  Europe  at  large  that,  if  it  could  be 
properly  managed,  a  really  universal  council,  as  the  voice 


THE  PAPACY  IN  THE  NEW  AGE  397 

of  the  united  church,  was  the  proper  method  of  solving 
the  difficulty. 

In  the  next  stage  of  events  the  emperor-elect,  Sigis- 
mund,  as  representing,  upon  the  political  side,  the  unity 
of  Christendom,  took  a  leading  part.  The  political  sit- 
uation in  Italy  forced  John  XXIII  to  depend  upon  the 
emperor's  aid,  and  Sigismund  was  therefore  able  to  make 
the  representatives  of  the  pope  agree  to  a  council  which 
was  to  meet  in  the  imperial  city  of  Constance,  and  so 
outside  of  Italy,  on  November  i,  1414.  This  agreement 
Sigismund  made  haste  to  announce  to  all  Europe  and  to 
invite  proper  persons  from  all  states  to  be  present.  After 
a  fruitless  attempt  to  change  the  place  of  meeting,  John 
was  compelled  to  acquiesce,  and  a  few  weeks  later  issued 
a  formal  summons  for  the  council. 

Sanctioned  in  this  way  by  the  Roman  emperor  and  by 
the  pope  whom  the  greater  part  of  the  church  recog- 
nized, and  supported  by  the  deep  and  universal  desire 
of  Europe  for  union  and  reformation,  the  council  which 
assembled  at  Constance  was  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
a  universal  one,  and  appeared  to  have  a  most  encourag- 
ing prospect  of  success.  Its  membership  reached  five 
thousand.  All  Europe  was  represented  from  the  begin- 
ning, with  insignificant  exceptions.  Its  spirit,  too,  was 
in  contrast  with  that  of  the  Council  of  Pisa.  While  reso- 
l-utely  determined  to  do  away  with  the  Schism,  it  was 
directed  with  caution  and  good  judgment. 

John  XXIII  failed  to  control  the  council  as  he  had 
hoped  to  do,  and  was  finally  forced  to  recognize  its  right 
to  depose  him.  This  was  done  on  May  29,  14 15.  On 
July  4th  the  council  listened  to  the  abdication,  voluntary 
in  form,  of  Gregory  XII.  Benedict  XIII  refused  to  ab- 
dicate, but  finally  his  supporters  all  withdrew  from  his 
obedience  and  joined  the  council,  and  on  July  26,  141 7, 
he  was  formally  deposed. 

The  church  was  now  reunited  in  a  way  that  was  satis- 


398  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

factory  to  all  Christendom,  but  it  was  without  a  head, 
and  measures  of  moral  reform  were  still  to  be  adopted. 
The  council  was  thus  brought  to  the  necessity  of  decid- 
ing a  question  upon  which  there  was  the  widest  dififer- 
ence  of  opinion — whether  it  should  proceed  first  to  the 
election  of  a  pope  or  to  a  thorough  reformation  of  the 
abuses  in  the  government  of  the  church,  of  which  there 
was  so  general  complaint.  The  earnest  reform  party, 
supported  by  the  emperor,  desired  to  make  sure  of  the 
reformation  before  the  choice  of  a  pope.  The  cardinals, 
less  interested  in  reformation  and  fearing  a  diminution 
of  their  influence,  demanded  the  immediate  election  of  a 
pope.  They  were  supported  by  the  Italian  representa- 
tives and  by  many  who  really  desired  reform,  but  in 
whom  the  conservative  feehng  of  the  necessity  of  a  head 
to  the  real  constitution  of  the  church  was  a  stronger 
motive.  The  reform  efforts  of  the  council  were  greatly 
weakened  by  dissension.  Various  parties  urged  special 
measures  of  their  own  which  were  not  acceptable  to 
others.  Local  and  national  interests  were  opposed  to 
one  another.  Political  influences  were  also  at  work  and 
agreement  on  details  seemed  impossible.  Finally  a  com- 
promise was  adopted.  Certain  reform  measures  on  which 
all  could  unite  were  to  be  first  decreed  by  the  council  and 
then  a  pope  was  to  be  elected.  In  accordance  with  this 
agreement  five  such  reform  decrees  were  adopted  in  Octo- 
ber, 141 7,  and  on  November  nth  the  cardinals,  to  whom 
the  council  had  added  thirty  representatives,  chosen  from 
its  membership  for  this  purpose,  elected  a  new  pope, 
who  took  the  name  of  Martin  V. 

The  new  pope  was  able  to  prevent  any  further  action 
of  importance  by  the  council,  and  it  dissolved  on  April 
22,  141 8,  having  reunited  the  church  but  not  having 
reformed  it.  The  most  important  of  the  general  reform 
measures  which  it  had  adopted  was  one  providing  for 
the  regular  recurrence  of  such  general  councils,  the  first 


THE   PAPACY   IN   THE   NEW   AGE  399 

in  five  years,  the  second  in  seven,  and  thereafter  at  inter- 
vals of  ten  years.  Could  this  decree  have  been  enforced, 
together  with  the  declarations  of  the  council  adopted  in 
its  early  sessions  of  the  superiority  of  a  general  council 
over  the  pope,  giving  expression  to  ideas  very  generally 
prevalent  at  the  time,  the  whole  constitution  of  the 
church  would  have  been  changed  and  all  its  subsequent 
history  would  have  been  different.  The  later  absolutism 
of  the  pope  would  have  been  impossible,  the  papacy 
would  have  been  transformed  into  a  limited  monarchy, 
and  the  supreme  power  would  have  been  a  representative 
assembly  meeting  at  regular  intervals,  and  having  final 
legislative  and  judicial  authority.  But  so  favorable  a 
moment  as  that  presented  by  the  Council  of  Constance 
for  accomplishing  this  result  never  recurred,  and  the 
failure  of  that  council  to  secure  the  subjection  of  the 
pope  was  fatal  to  the  plan. 

The  first  two  councils,  provided  for  by  the  decree  of 
the  Council  of  Constance,  met  at  the  appointed  time  but 
were  able  to  accomphsh  nothing.  The  first  was  held  at 
Pavia,  in  1423,  but  was  very  thinly  attended,  and,  though 
it  manifested  the  same  desire  to  limit  the  power  of  the 
pope,  Martin  V  dissolved  it  before  it  had  adopted  any 
important  measures.  It  selected  Basel  as  the  place  for 
the  meeting  of  the  next  council,  which  would  assemble 
.in  1 43 1.  At  that  time  the  threatening  successes  of  the 
Hussites  and  the  apparent  impossibihty  of  overcoming 
them  by  force  seemed  to  make  a  general  council  espe- 
cially necessary,  but  the  attendance  at  its  opening  was 
small  and  became  at  no  time  large.  Its  spirit,  however, 
was  most  determined  and  its  measures  most  thorough- 
going. It  gave  itself  a  democratic  organization  by  ad- 
mitting the  lower  clergy  to  an  equal  vote  with  the  higher; 
it  reaffirmed  the  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Constance  in 
regard  to  the  superiority  of  a  council  over  the  pope; 
denied  his  right  to  dissolve  the  council  without  its  own 


400  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

consent;  declared  that  the  payment  of  annates  and  of 
all  fees  to  the  pope  on  appointment  to  benefices  should 
cease;  provided  for  local  synods  to  carry  throughout  the 
church  the  idea  of  government  by  councils;  attempted  to 
change  the  method  of  electing  the  popes  by  the  cardinals; 
and  assumed  the  right  to  exercise  in  several  points  special 
papal  prerogatives.  But  it  did  not  gain  general  recog- 
nition for  these  assumptions.  The  pope,  Eugenius  IV, 
after  a  premature  attempt  to  dissolve  it,  had  been  com- 
pelled by  poHtical  considerations  for  some  time  to  recog- 
nize it  as  a  council,  but  finally  he  was  able  to  declare  it 
dissolved  and  to  open  another  council  under  his  own  con- 
trol in  Italy.  The  Council  of  Basel  in  turn  deposed  the 
pope  and  elected  one  of  its  own  in  his  place.  But  the 
more  influential  of  the  prelates  gradually  went  over  to 
the  side  of  Pope  Eugenius.  The  council  degenerated 
rapidly,  and  finally  disappeared,  a  complete  failure. 

One  other  phase  of  this  later  contest  is  of  considerable 
interest.  At  the  moment  when  the  discord  between  the 
Council  of  Basel  and  the  pope  threatened  a  new  schism 
in  the  church,  France  and  Germany  took  advantage  of 
the  opportunity  to  declare  in  advance  their  neutrality 
in  the  coming  struggle,  and  to  signify  their  acceptance  of 
such  decrees  of  the  council  as  would  secure  a  good  de- 
gree of  independence  to  their  national  churches.  The 
French  national  synod,  held  at  Bourges,  in  1438,  recog- 
nized the  superior  authority  of  councils,  declared  that 
they  ought  to  be  held  every  ten  years,  enacted  that  reser- 
vations to  the  pope  of  ecclesiastical  appointments,  an- 
nates, and  appeals  to  Rome  in  ordinary  cases  should 
cease,  and  adopted  measures  of  moral  reform.  The  fol- 
lowing year  very  similar  provisions  were  adopted  for 
Germany  by  the  Diet  at  Mainz.  Such  a  result  was  in 
truth  a  natural  consequence  of  the  position  taken  by  the 
councils  and  of  the  general  current  of  opinion  which  had 
supported  them,  and  if  that  position  had  been  success- 


THE  PAPACY  IN  THE  NEW  AGE  40I 

fully  established  and  the  constitution  of  the  church  per- 
manently modified,  it  would  inevitably  have  led  to  the 
formation  of  locally  independent  and  self-governing  na- 
tional churches.  As  it  was,  this  attempt  also  came  to 
nothing.^ 

This  movement  for  national  independence  indicates 
the  real  significance  of  the  crisis  through  which  the  church 
had  passed.  It  had  been  a  most  serious  danger  to  the 
papacy,  looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  of  its  historical 
development  as  an  ecclesiastical  power.  Drawing  its 
strength  and  life  undoubtedly  from  the  same  sources 
from  which  the  great  political  movement  whose  history 
we  have  followed  had  drawn,  brought  about  in  fact  by  the 
same  forces  as  those  which  had  constructed  the  new  na- 
tions transferred  now  to  the  sphere  of  ecclesiastical  govern- 
ment, this  movement  strove  to  work  the  same  revolution 
•there  which  had  been  worked  in  temporal  governments. 
Unconscious  of  course  of  this  relationship,  unconscious  also 
very  largely  of  the  end  which  would  have  been  reached, 
bat  with  a  growing  clearness  of  apprehension,  this  revo- 
lution threatened  to  transform  as  completely  the  Roman 
Catholic  monarchy  as  it  had  transformed  that  other  great 
medieval  creation,  the  feudal  system.  The  peculiar  sit- 
uation of  things  within  the  church — the  Babylonian  cap- 
tivity and  the  Great  Schism — -gave  an  opportunity  for 
the  translation  of  the  political  ideas  of  the  age  into  eccle- 

*  The  French  church  retained  some  independence,  more  to  the  advantage 
of  the  king,  however,  than  of  the  church.  In  1682,  in  consequence  of  a 
quarrel  between  Louis  XIV  and  the  pope  over  the  right  of  the  king  to  make 
appointments  in  the  church,  an  assembly  of  the  French  clergy  adopted  the 
Four  Articles  of  the  GaUican  church.  These  asserted,  i,  that  the  power  of 
the  pope  is  wholly  spiritual  and  that  kings  cannot  be  deposed  by  him;  2, 
that  popes  are  subject  to  the  decisions  of  general  councils;  3,  that  popes 
must  govern  according  to  the  accepted  laws  of  the  church,  and,  especially, 
according  to  the  rights  of  the  Galilean  church;  and  4,  that  decisions  of  the 
popes  in  matters  of  faith  have  only  a  temporary  force,  and,  to  become  per- 
manently binding,  must  be  accepted  by  a  general  council.  There  seem  like 
a  reaflErraation  of  the  principles  of  the  councils  but  they  established  no  real 
independence. 


402  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

siastical  ideas.  The  growing  importance  of  the  repre- 
sentative system — of  Diets  and  Estates  General — in  na- 
tional governments  made  the  appeal  to  a  general  council 
in  the  government  of  the  church  seem  a  perfectly  natural 
recourse  in  time  of  difficulty,  especially  to  lawyers,  and 
university  teachers,  and  even  to  the  great  lay  public.  It 
might  not  seem  so  simple  and  manifest  an  expedient  to 
those  immediately  concerned  in  the  government  of  the 
church  and  directly  interested  in  its  traditions  or  devoted 
to  them.  But  the  strength  of  the  reform  movement  was 
not  drawn  from  the  world  of  the  cardinals  and  great 
prelates,  but  from  the  universities  and  the  doctors,  and 
the  non-ecclesiastical  world. 

This  movement  was,  in  truth,  strong  enough  to  have 
succeeded,  and  it  almost  succeeded.  If  the  Council  of 
Constance  had  continued  to  the  end  cautious  and  well- 
managed,  if  there  could  have  come  to  the  front  some 
great  leader,  strong  enough  to  have  persuaded  its  mem- 
bers to  lay  aside  their  local  differences  for  the  general 
cause,  and  to  hold  back  outside  political  interests  from 
interference,  and  who  could  have  defined  clearly  the 
specific  measures  necessary  to  realize  the  policy  which 
unquestionably  the  majority  desired,  he  could  have  suc- 
ceeded in  all  probability  in  remodelling  the  government 
of  the  church.  It  seems  an  almost  unparalleled  fact  that 
the  crisis  did  not  produce  such  a  leader. 

It  may  be  objected  that  such  a  revolution  would  have 
been  too  sudden  to  effect  a  permanent  reform,  that  only 
those  revolutions  are  really  successful  which  are  the  cul- 
mination, however  sudden  in  appearance,  of  a  long  pre- 
pared change.  The  principle  is  certainly  correct,  but  the 
application  here  is  doubtful,  for  the  line  of  preparation  is 
manifestly  to  be  traced  not  in  the  ecclesiastical  but  in  the 
political  world. 

Knowing,  as  we  do  now,  the  events  which  followed  on 
so  rapidly  in  the  history  of  the  church — the  revolution  so 


THE   PAPACY   IN   THE   NEW  AGE  403 

much  more  violent  and  far-reaching  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury— we  cannot  help  asking  the  question:  What  would 
have  been  the  result  had  the  Council  of  Constance  suc- 
ceeded where  it  failed?  and  allowing  the  imagination  to 
answer.  It  seems  certain  that  one  result  would  have 
been  the  formation  of  a  government  for  the  church  like 
that  which  was  taking  shape  at  the  same  time  in  England, 
a  limited  monarch}^  with  a  legislature  gradually  gaining 
more  and  more  the  real  control  of  affairs.  It  seems  al- 
most equally  certain  that  with  this  the  churches  of  each 
nationality  would  have  gained  a  large  degree  of  local  in- 
dependence and  the  general  government  of  the  church 
have  assumed  by  degrees  the  character  of  a  great  federal 
and  constitutional  state.  If  this  had  been  the  case,  it  is 
hard  to  see  why  all  the  results  which  were  accomplished 
by  the  reformation  of  Luther  might  not  have  been  at- 
tained as  completely  without  that  violent  disruption  of 
the  church,  which  was  necessary  and  unavoidable  as  the 
church  was  then  constituted.  Whether  that  would  have 
been  on  the  whole  a  better  result  may  be  left  without 
discussion. 

If  this  is  in  a  way  fanciful  history,  the  results  which 
did  follow  were  real  enough.  The  theory  of  the  papal 
supremacy  was  too  strongly  established  in  the  church  to 
be  overthrown  by  an  opposing  theory  only  half-believed 
in  by  its  supporters.  The  logic  of  the  papal  position  is 
immensely  strong  if  its  starting-point  be  accepted,  and 
to  the  great  body  of  the  leading  churchmen  of  the  times, 
whose  training  was  wholly  in  speculative  and  theoretical 
lines,  it  seemed  in  the  end  invincible.  It  would  have 
demanded  a  more  united  and  abler  commanded  attack  to 
have  destroyed  it.  The  only  result  of  the  attempt,  so 
far  as  the  church  constitution  is  concerned,  was  to  make 
the  position  of  the  papal  absolutism  stronger  than  it  had 
been  before,  and  to  bring  to  an  end  forever  any  serious 
opposition  to  it.     The  next  great  council,  that  of  Trent, 


404  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

which  was  so  completely  under  the  control  of  the  pope 
as  to  give  ground  for  the  sneer  that  the  Holy  Spirit  by 
which  it  was  inspired  came  every  day  from  Rome  in  a 
mail-bag,  was  the  legitimate  successor  of  the  Council  of 
Constance;  and  the  dogma  of  papal  infallibiHty,  pro- 
claimed by  the  Council  of  the  Vatican,  in  1870,  was  only 
an  official  formulation  of  the  principle  established  when 
the  movement  for  reformation  by  councils  in  the  fifteenth 
century  failed. 

The  fact  that  the  Council  of  Constance  did  actually 
appear  to  depose  popes  and  to  provide  during  a  brief 
interval  for  the  government  of  the  church  gives  the 
Catholic  theologian  of  to-day  who  maintains  the  tradi- 
tional position  but  little  difficulty.  In  his  eyes,  Gregory 
XII  was  the  only  one  of  the  three  popes  who  had  a  right- 
ful title.  The  assembly  at  Constance  was  no  real  general 
council,  only  a  synod,  until  Gregory  issued  his  bull  of 
convocation,  and  its  acts  passed  before  that  date,  includ- 
ing its  declaration  of  the  superior  power  of  a  council,  are 
all  wanting  in  legislative  validity.  By  convoking  the 
council  and  then  abdicating  his  office  Gregory  relieved 
the  church  from  great  embarrassment,  and  first  gave  to  the 
council  a  legitimate  position,  so  that  it  could  act  with 
some  prospect  of  success  for  the  reunion  of  the  church. 
By  accepting  the  acts  of  Gregory,  the  council  formally 
recognized  him  as  the  only  legitimate  pope,  and^  by  infer- 
ence, with  him  his  predecessors  during  the  Schism.^  Thus 
the  theory  is  perfectly  preserved.  Whatever  right  the 
council  had  in  the  premises  it  got  not  by  virtue  of  its 
existence  as  a  general  council,  but  indirectly,  from  the 
concessions  of  the  pope. 

For  the  moral  reformation  of  the  church  the  age  of 
the  councils  accomplished  nothing  of  real  value.  Most 
of  the  old  abuses  of  which  the  people  complained  re- 
mained unchecked.  Avarice  and  immorality  continued, 
'  Pastor,  Geschichte  der  Pdpste,  vol.  I,  pp.  154-155. 


THE   PAPACY   IN   THE   NEW   AGE  405 

unabashed,  in  the  papal  court,  and  before  the  close  of  the 
century  the  papacy  was  to  reach  a  depth  of  moral  deg- 
radation equalled  only  in  the  tenth  century.  A  consid- 
erable proportion  of  the  clergy  throughout  Europe  imi- 
tated the  practices  of  Italy,  and,  heedless  of  the  warnings 
they  were  constantly  receiving,  continued  to  strengthen 
the  current  of  rebellion. 

Politically  the  position  of  the  papacy  was  greatly 
changed,  but  it  remained  no  less  controlled,  perhaps  even 
more  controlled,  by  political  considerations.  The  day 
when  it  could  hope  to  carry  out  the  plans  of  Gregory 
VII,  and  Innocent  III,  and  Boniface  VIII,  and  to  estab- 
lish a  monarchy,  imperial  in  the  political  as  it  was  in 
the  ecclesiastical  world,  would  never  return  again.  But 
the  pope  was  a  king  as  well  as  a  bishop.  He  was  the 
temporal  sovereign  of  a  little  state  in  Italy.  With  the 
rise  of  international  politics  and  the  beginning  of  the  mod- 
ern conflict  of  state  with  state  for  European  suprem- 
acy which  we  have  already  noticed,  Italy  was  the  first 
battle-ground  of  all  nations.  It  was  the  practically  un- 
occupied piece  of  ground  lying  first  at  hand  in  which 
each  might  hope  to  gain  some  great  advantage  over  the 
others.  In  this  struggle  of  armies  and  diplomacy  the 
popes  had  an  immediate  and  vital  interest.  They  must 
enter  into  it  on  the  same  footing  and  with  the  same 
weapons  as  Austria  or  Spain,  and  this  necessity  of  con- 
stantly striving  to  preserve  the  independence  of  their 
little  kingdom  in  the  turmoil  of  European  politics,  or  to 
recover  it  when  lost,  has  been  a  controlhng  element  in 
the  papal  policy  down  to  the  present  time,  a  perpetu- 
ally harassing  and  disabling  necessity,  judged  from  the 
point  of  view  of  its  rehgious  position. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE   REFORMATION 

By  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  middle 
ages  had  come  to  an  end  in  almost  every  line  of  civili- 
zation. Politically,  economically,  and  intellectually  the 
new  forces  and  the  new  methods  had  possession  of  the 
field.  The  old  were  not  yet  beaten  at  every  point.  On 
many  matters  of  detail  much  fighting  had  yet  to  be 
done.  In  some  places,  perhaps,  the  old  succeeded  in 
maintaining  itself,  or  even  in  recovering  ground.  But 
on  the  main  issues,  everywhere,  the  victory  had  been  won 
— with  one  most  important  exception.  The  church  was 
unchanged.  It  had  remained  unaffected  by  the  new 
forces  which  had  transformed  everything  else.  It  was 
still  thoroughly  medieval.  In  government,  in  doctrine, 
and  in  life  it  still  placed  the  greatest  emphasis  upon  those 
additions  which  the  peculiar  conditions  of  the  middle  ages 
had  built  upon  the  foundation  of  the  primitive  Chris- 
tianity, and  it  was  determined  to  remain  unchanged. 

This  was  not  because  no  attempt  had  been  made  to 
transform  it.  It  was  entirely  impossible  that  it  should 
have  passed  through  such  an  era  of  change  as  that  which 
followed  the  crusades  without  coming  into  contact  and 
conflict  with  the  new  forces.  We  have  seen  the  attempt 
which  was  made,  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, at  the  Council  of  Constance,  to  bring  over  into  the 
sphere  of  ecclesiastical  government  the  institutions  and 
ideas  which  had  been  produced  in  the  course  of  the  polit- 
ical transformation,  which  was  then  under  way,  and  to 

406 


THE   REFORMATION  407 

make  over  the  government  of  the  church  in  harmony 
with  the  new  age.  That  attempt  failed  completely,  and 
its  only  effect  had  been  to  strengthen  the  government  of 
the  church  in  its  medievalism. 

In  the  line  of  theological  belief  and  of  life  we  have  not 
followed  the  attempts  which  had  been  made  before  the 
Reformation  to  bring  about  a  change,  but  they  had  not 
been  wanting,  and  they  had  not  lacked  clearness  of  pur- 
pose or  earnestness. 

In  the  tliirteenth  century,  beginning  perhaps  a  trifle 
earHer,  in  the  valley  of  the  Rhone,  there  had  been  a  re- 
volt from  the  church  upon  these  points  which  had  never 
been  entirely  subdued.  It  was  the  region  of  an  early 
and  a  brilliant  civdHzation,  the  land  of  the  troubadours. 
An  active  intellectual  hfe  and  an  inquiring  spirit  appar- 
ently existed  there  in  all  classes,^  and  a  line  of  connection 
with  earlier  forms  of  heresy  probably  gave  direction  to  a 
revolt  which  would  have  occurred  without  it.  Two  sects 
must  be  distinguished  from  one  another  in  the  same  gen- 
eral region — the  Albigenses,  more  directly  interested  in 
questions  of  theology,  and  considered  heretics  by  Prot- 
estants as  well  as  CathoHcs,  and  the  Waldenses,  or  Vau- 
dois,  chiefly  co^icerned  with  religious  questions  and  the 
conduct  of  life,  and  orthodox  in  theology  according  to 
Protestant  standards.  In  the  case  of  the  Albigenses  the 
church  was  able  to  make  use  of  political  assistance,  and 
a  civil  war  of  some  years'  duration  resulted  in  the  exter- 
mination of  the  heretics,  and  finally  in  the  annexation  of 
the  county  of  Toulouse  by  the  crown  of  France.  The 
Waldenses,  in  a  more  remote  country,  in  the  valleys  of 
eastern  Switzerland  and  Savoy,  survived  a  persecution 
which  was  both  severe  and  long  continued.  Through 
their  earnest  devotion  to  the  study  of  the  Bible  in  the 
vernacular,  they  exercised  a  considerable  influence  in 
many  lands  of  continental  Europe,  though  their  share  in 

'  Comba,  Waldenses,  p.  15. 


4o8  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  general  pre-reformation  movement  has  sometimes 
been  greatly  exaggerated.  They  seem  to  have  received 
some  new  impulse  themselves  from  the  followers  of  Huss, 
and  when  the  Reformation  finally  came  they  acknowl- 
edged the  similarity  of  its  principles  with  their  own,  and 
frequently  associated  themselves  with  Protestant  organ- 
izations of  a  Calvinistic  type. 

While  this  more  or  less  revolutionary  movement  was 
under  way,  there  occurred,  within  the  church  and  in  har- 
mony with  it,  another  like  it  in  its  emphasis  of  the  simpler 
Christian  life,  chiefly  of  the  ascetic  type,  which  should 
not  be  overlooked.  The  two  great  mendicant  orders,  the 
Franciscans  and  the  Dominicans,  both  officially  recognized 
before  1225,  represent  a  true  monastic  revival  of  the  re- 
ligious life,  like  the  reformation  of  Cluny  in  the  tenth  cen- 
tury or  of  the  Cistercians  in  the  twelfth.  Vowed  to  ex- 
treme poverty  and  devoting  themselves  with  a  genuine 
enthusiasm  to  the  service  of  the  poorest  classes  and  to  re- 
ligious ministrations,  the  mendicants  did  a  great  amount 
of  practical  good.  Before  very  long  both  orders  became 
wealthy  and  corrupt;  both  took  eager  part  in  the  intel- 
lectual work  of  the  century  in  the  new  universities;  but 
nothing  should  obscure  the  fact  that  in  their  early  history 
they  stand  for  a  real  reformation  and  are  a  sign  of  the 
religious  tendencies  of  the  time. 

A  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  the  rise  of  the  Wal- 
denses,  Ia  the  last  half  of  the  fourteenth  century,  a  revolt 
of  the  same  kind  occurred  in  England.  It  was  at  the  time 
of  England's  first  great  literary  age — the  time  of  Chaucer 
and  Gower  and  Langland.  It  closely  followed  an  age  of 
great  military  glory — the  victories  of  Crecy  and  of  Poi- 
tiers and  almost  as  glorious  victories  over  the  Scotch. 
The  lower  classes,  as  well  as  others,  felt  the  stimulus  of 
such  an  age,  and,  in  Wat  Tyler's  insurrection,  demanded 
the  reform  of  old  abuses  and  new  guarantees  for  their 
security.     It  is  possible  that  even  without  the  vigorous 


THE   REFORMATION  409 

leadership  of  Wycliffe  so  favorable  an  age  would  have  pro- 
duced a  demand  for  a  religious  reformation.  As  it  was, 
the  demand  which  was  made  seems  almost  wholly  the 
result  of  his  personal  influence,  of  his  earnest  spirit  and 
his  deeply  inquiring  mind.  In  Wycliffe's  work  there  was 
an  attempted  reformation  of  theology  and  of  religion,  of 
Christian  doctrines  and  of  the  Christian  life  in  about 
equal  proportions,  and,  from  the  peculiar  situation  of 
things  in  England,  it  involved  political  ideas  not  neces- 
sarily connected  with  the  others.  It  has  been  said  that 
Wycliffe  "disowned  and  combated  almost  every  distin- 
guishing feature  of  the  medieval  and  papal  church,  as 
contrasted  with  the  Protestant."^  His  "poor  priests" 
undoubtedly  were  messengers  of  good  to  the  poorer 
classes,  and  the  fact  that  so  large  a  number  of  manu- 
scripts as  one  hundred  and  sixty-five,  containing  larger  or 
smaller  parts  of  his  translation  of  the  Scriptures,  has  been 
found,  shows  conclusively  how  widely  the  copies  were 
circulated  and  how  carefully  they  were  preserved.  The 
division  of  political  parties  in  England  during  Wychffe's 
life  served  to  protect  him  and  his  followers  from  serious 
persecution;  but  after  the  accession  of  the  House  of  Lan- 
caster to  the  throne  this  reason  no  longer  existed,  and  the 
church  had  her  way  with  the  heretics.  In  1401  the  first 
English  statute  was  passed  punishing  wrong  theological 
opinions  with  death,"  and,  in  the  few  years  following,  the 
Lollards,  as  Wycliffe's  followers  were  called,  were  appar- 
ently exterminated. 

If  it  is  doubtful  whether  Wycliffe's  influence  may  not 
have  died  out  in  England,  certainly  it  was  continued 
upon  the  Continent  in  the  last  great  religious  rebellion 
against  the  medieval  church  which  preceded  Luther's. 

^  Fisher,  Reformation,  p.  60. 

2  Down  to  this  time  there  had  been  no  heresy  of  importance  in  England. 
On  the  influence  of  Wycliffe  on  the  later  religious  history  of  England  see 
Poole,  Wyclijffe,  p.  118,  and  Gairdner,  Lollardy  and  the  Reformation  in  En- 
gland. 


4IO  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

The  close  connection  which  was  established  between  the 
EngHsh  and  Bohemian  courts,  and  between  the  Univer- 
sities of  Prague  and  Oxford,  as  a  result  of  the  marriage 
of  Richard  II  and  Anne  of  Bohemia,  brought  some  Bo- 
hemian students  into  contact  with  Wychffe's  teachings 
and  led  to  the  carrying  of  his  writings  to  their  fatherland. 
The  reform  movement  which  resulted  in  Bohemia,  whose 
leader  was  John  Huss,  followed  in  all  essential  matters 
the  ideas  of  Wycliffe,  but  it  placed  the  strongest  emphasis 
upon  other  points,  such,  for  example,  as  the  communion 
in  two  kinds,  from  which  one  wing  of  the  Hussites,  the 
Utraquists,  derived  its  name.  Huss  himself  did  not  lay 
so  much  stress,  perhaps,  upon  the  translation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures into  the  language  of  the  people,  but  his  appeal  to  the 
Bible  as  the  final  authority  in  questions  of  belief,  and  his 
assertion  of  his  right  to  judge  of  its  meaning  for  himself, 
were  clear  and  emphatic,  and  his  followers  were  as  ear- 
nest translators  as  WyclifTe  or  the  Waldensians  could  have 
desired.  Huss  and  his  disciple,  Jerome  of  Prague,  were 
burned  at  the  stake  by  the  Council  of  Constance,  in  141 5, 
but  political  reasons,  the  unending  strife  between  the  Slav 
and  the  German  in  part,  gave  his  cause  so  much  strength 
in  Bohemia  that,  after  twenty  years  of  desperate  warfare 
the  revolt  was  ended  by  a  compromise,  and  the  church 
gave  way  to  the  Hussites  to  a  certain  extent,  in  the  points 
of  practice  upon  which  they  insisted  most  strongly. 

These  three  are  the  most  prominent  of  the  attempts  at 
reformation  which  were  made  before  Luther.  They  were 
all  very  limited  in  their  influence.  None  of  them  had 
anything  more  than  an  indirect  effect  upon  the  larger 
pre-reformation  movement,  upon  the  general  demand  for 
reform,  and  the  general  preparation  for  Luther's  work 
which  was  being  made,  and  which  showed  itself  so  plainly 
when  the  time  came.  They  were  rather  signs  that  such 
a  demand  was  arising  than  causes  of  its  gathering  strength. 
They  were  the  most  prominent  signs  of  this  under-current, 


THE   REFORMATION  41I 

but  by  no  means  the  only  ones.  There  is  abundance  of 
evidence  from  the  fifteenth  century,  in  the  case  of  indi- 
viduals or  small  bodies  of  men — sometimes  the  taint  was 
apparently  almost  national,  and  excited  the  alarm  of  the 
church,^  or  affected  ecclesiastical  ofl&cers  of  high  rank — 
evidence  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  practical  Christian- 
ity  of  the  day,  or  of  a  leaning  toward  theological  explana- 
tions almost  or  quite  Protestant  in  character.  These 
cases,  are,  however,  mostly  independent  of  one  another, 
and  independent  of  the  larger  revolts  which  have  been 
noticed.  Nor  upon  Luther  himself  did  these  attempted 
reformations  have  any  influence.  All  the  positions  which 
were  afterwards  taken  by  him,  which  brought  him  into  a 
necessary  conflict  with  the  Roman  church,  he  had  taken 
before  he  knew  anything  essential  of  the  work  of  his  fore- 
runners in  the  same  Hne. 

If  these  premature  rebellions  against  the  medieval 
church  were  not  among  the  immediate  influences  lead- 
ing to  the  Reformation,  they  were  certainly  of  the  same 
essential  nature.  Two  features  which  are  characteristic 
of  them  all  are  of  great  significance  in  this  direction. 
They  all  asserted  that  the  Christianity  of  their  tim.e 
differed  in  some  important  particulars  from  the  primi- 
tive Christianity,  and  that  a  return  must  be  made  to  the 
earlier  usage.  They  differed  somewhat  from  one  another 
■  in  the  particulars  selected,  but  all  alike  asserted  the  im- 
portant principle  that  the  original  Christianity  is  the 
ultimate  standard,  and  that  the  professions  of  every  age 
must  be  judged  by  it,  as  recorded  in  the  Scriptures.  In 
the  second  place,  they  all  demanded  that  the  right  of 
every  individual  Christian  to  study  the  Bible  and  to 
reach  his  own  conclusions  should  be  recognized  by  the 
church.     These  two  principles— the  appeal  to  the  origi- 

'  See  the  discovery  of  evidence  which  indicates  a  wide-spread  demand 
among  the  bishops  of  Spain  for  reformation  on  the  same  lines  as  Luther's, 
referred  to  in  the  London  Acade7ny,  1893,  p.  197. 


412  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

nal  sources  and  the  right  of  individual  investigation — ■ 
were  established  in  the  intellectual  world  by  the  Renais- 
sance, but  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  bear  in  mind 
the  fact  that  they  had  both  been  definitely  asserted,  and 
with  a  more  or  less  clear  consciousness,  in  the  line  of 
reHgious  advancement  before  the  influence  of  the  Re- 
naissance began  to  be  felt.  It  will  be  necessary  to  return 
to  this  point  when  we  reach  the  beginning  of  the  Refor- 
mation proper. 

But  all  these  attempts  at  reformation  in  the  church, 
large  and  small,  had  failed,  as  had  those  of  the  early 
fifteenth  century  to  reform  its  government,  leaving  the 
church  as  thoroughly  medieval  in  doctrine  and  in  practical 
religion  as  it  was  in  polity.  It  was  the  one  power,  there- 
fore, belonging  to  the  middle  ages  which  still  stood  unaf- 
fected by  the  new  forces  and  opposed  to  them.  In  other 
directions  the  changes  had  been  many,  here  nothing  had 
been  changed.  And  its  resisting  power  was  very  great. 
Endowed  with  large  wealth,  strong  in  numbers  in  every 
state,  with  no  lack  of  able  and  thoroughly  trained  minds, 
its  interests,  as  it  regarded  them,  in  maintaining  the  old 
were  enormous,  and  its  power  of  defending  itself  seemed 
scarcely  to  be  broken. 

In  this  state  of  things  is  to  be  found  the  explanation  of 
the  fact  that  the  reformation  of  the  church  was  so  much 
more  revolutionary  and  violent  than  the  corresponding 
change  in  other  directions.  Everywhere  else  the  same 
revolution  had  really  been  wrought.  In  some  cases  there 
had  been  an  appeal  to  revolutionary  methods  in  matters 
of  detail,  but,  in  the  main,  the  change  had  been  a  gradual 
transformation  by  which  the  new  had  been,  almost  uncon- 
sciously, put  in  place  of  the  old.  But  the  church  had 
been  strong  enough  to  resist  successfully  any  gradual 
transformation  or  any  change  of  details;  it  remained  an 
absolute  theocracy  in  matters  of  doctrine  and  of  practice, 
so  that  when  the  change  did  come,  it  necessarily  came  sud- 


THE   REFORMATION  413 

denly  and  \aolently,  and  with  incomplete  results.  The 
new  forces  had  not  been  destroyed  because  they  had  been 
prevented  from  producing  their  natural  results.  They 
had  been  merely  dammed  up  until  they  gathered  an  ir- 
resistible weight. 

Nor  was  the  preparation  for  the  Reformation  confined 
to  the  religious  and  the  ecclesiastical.  The  discontent 
under  the  injustice  and  abuses  in  the  management  of 
the  church;  the  demand  for  a  moral  reformation  in  the 
lives  of  the  clergy;  the  feehng,  less  definite  and  con- 
scious but  still  not  slight,  of  opposition  to  the  absolutism 
of  the  papacy;  and  the  still  less  clearly  formulated  but 
deep-seated  dissatisfaction  with  the  mechanical  and  for- 
mal Christianity  of  the  church,  as  being  untrue  to  its 
original  spiritual  character,  these  feehngs  were  very 
widely  extended — European  so  far  as  the  middle  classes 
were  concerned,  Teutonic  at  least,  in  the  case  of  the 
lower  classes  who  suffered  the  most  severely  from  the 
abuses  complained  of,  and  had  the  least  opportunity  for 
redress.  These  feelings  constituted  an  indispensable 
preparation  for  the  Reformation,  but  other  conditions 
were  equally  necessary  to  its  complete  success. 

The  revolution  which  had  been  wrought  in  the  intel- 
lectual world  in  the  century  between  Huss  and  Luther 
was  one  of  the  indispensable  conditions.  At  the  death 
of  Huss  the  West  had  only  just  begun  the  study  of  Greek. 
Since  that  date,  the  great  body  of  classical  literature  had 
been  recovered,  and  the  sciences  of  philological  and  his- 
torical criticism  thoroughly  established.  As  a  result, 
Luther  had  at  his  command  a  well-developed  method 
and  an  apparatus  of  exegesis  and  research  impossible  to 
any  earlier  reformer,  and  without  these  his  translation 
of  the  Bible,  and  the  arguments  of  all  the  early  Protes- 
tants, so  largely  historical  in  character,  would  have  been 
wanting  in  many  things.  But  also  the  world  had  be- 
come familiar  with  independent  investigation,  and  with 


414  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  proclamation  of  new  views  and  the  upsetting  of  old 
ones.  By  no  means  the  least  of  the  great  services  of 
Erasmus  to  civilization  had  been  to  hold  up  before  all 
the  world  so  conspicuous  an  example  of  the  scholar  fol- 
lowing, as  his  inalienable  right,  the  truth  as  he  found  it 
wherever  it  appeared  to  lead  him,  and  honest  in  his  pub- 
lic utterances  to  the  results  of  his  studies.  He  did  not 
convince  all  the  world  of  his  right.  But  his  was  the 
crowning  work  of  a  century  which  had  produced  in  the  gen- 
eral public  a  greatly  changed  attitude  of  mind  towards 
intellectual  independence  since  the  days  of  Huss.  The 
printing-press  was  of  itself  almost  enough  to  account  for 
Luther's  success  as  compared  with  his  predecessors. 
Wycliffe  made  almost  as  direct  and  vigorous  an  appeal 
to  the  public  at  large,  and  "with  an  amazing  industry  he 
issued  tract  after  tract  in  the  tongue  of  the  people";  but 
Luther  had  a  great  advantage  in  the  rapid  multiplication 
of  copies  and  in  their  cheapness,  and  he  covered  Europe 
with  the  issues  of  his  press.  The  discovery  of  America, 
the  finding  of  a  sea  route  to  India  and  the  beginning  of 
a  world-commerce,  the  opening  of  another  world  of  ex- 
periences in  the  recovered  knowledge  of  history  and  of 
literature,  the  great  inventions,  a  revived  rapidity  of 
intercourse  throughout  Europe,  and  a  new  sense  of  com- 
munity interests,  indeed,  all  the  results  of  the  fifteenth 
century  that  can  be  mentioned  had  combined  to  create 
a  new  spirit  and  a  new  atmosphere.  Luther  spoke  to  a 
very  different  public  from  that  which  Wycliffe  or  Huss 
had  addressed — a  public  European  in  extent,  and  one  not 
merely  familiar  with  the  assertion  of  new  ideas  but  tol- 
erant, in  a  certain  way,  of  the  innovator,  and  expectant 
of  great  things  in  the  future. 

The  political  situation  in  Europe  also,  at  the  time  of 
Luther,  was,  to  all  appearance  at  least,  an  essential  con- 
dition of  the  ultimate  success  of  the  Reformation.  The 
large  possessions  brought  together  through  the  fortunate 


THE   REFORMATION  415 

marriages  of  the  Hapsburgs  had  been  united  with  those 
which  the  diplomatic  skill  of  Ferdinand  the  Catholic  had 
acquired.  The  "civil  arm,"  as  represented  by  the  Em- 
peror Charles  V,  would  seem  to  have  been  strong  enough 
to  deal  unhesitatingly  with  any  unwelcome  religious  opin- 
ion which  might  arise.  But  Charles  never  found  a  mo- 
ment when  he  could  exert  this  strength  against  Protes- 
tantism, until  it  was  too  late.  On  the  west  was  the  rival 
power  of  France,  less  in  extent  and  apparent  resources, 
but  not  scattered  like  his  own  power,  closely  concen- 
trated in  the  hands  of  the  brilliant  and  ambitious  Fran- 
cis I.  On  the  east  was  the  equally  dangerous  Turkish 
empire,  still  at  the  height  of  its  strength,  and  determined 
to  push  its  conquests  farther  up  the  Danube  valley. 
Three  times  after  the  Diet  of  Worms,  where  Luther  was 
originally  condemned,  when  Charles  seemed  free  to  use 
his  whole  power  for  the  extermination  of  heresy,  follow- 
ing no  doubt  his  personal  inclination  as  well  as  what  he 
iudged  to  be  his  political  interests — in  1526,  in  1529,  and 
again  in  1530 — was  he  forced,  each  time  by  some  sud- 
den turn  in  the  affairs  of  Europe,  some  new  combination 
against  him,  sometimes  with  the  pope  among  his  enemies, 
to  grant  a  momentary  toleration.  In  1532  was  concluded 
the  definite  Peace  of  Nuremberg,  the  price  of  Protestant 
assistance  against  the  Turks,  by  which  a  formal  agree- 
ment was  made  to  allow  matters  to  remain  as  they  were 
until  the  meeting  of  a  general  council.  Under  this  ar- 
rangement Protestantism  gained  so  much  strength  that 
when,  in  1547,  the  emperor  at  last  found  himself  able  to 
attack  its  adherents,  he  could  not  entirely  subdue  them, 
although  he  nearly  succeeded. 

Such,  then,  was  the  long  and  general  preparation  for 
the  Reformation — religious,  intellectual,  and  political. 
So  deep  was  the  current  setting  in  this  direction  that 
nothing  could  have  held  it  back.  Lefevre  and  Zwingli 
and  Luther,  beginning  at  the  same  time  in  three  different 


4l6  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

countries,  and  entirely  independent  of  one  another,  the 
same  work,  show  clearly  how  inevitable  the  movement 
was.  We  associate  the  beginning  of  the  Reformation  es- 
pecially with  the  name  of  Luther,  and  correctly  so.  His 
attack  was  directed  so  squarely  at  the  central  point  of 
the  papal  defences;  he  began  it  in  so  conspicuous  a  way, 
and  upon  a  question  of  such  general  interest;  it  was  con- 
nected, also,  so  directly  with  the  empire;  and  the  prepara- 
tion for  it  extended  so  far  down  among  the  people  to  whom 
he  immediately  appealed,  that  it  attracted  at  once  uni- 
versal attention,  and  became  the  forefront  of  the  whole 
European  movement.  But  it  is  as  certain  as  any  un- 
enacted  history  can  be  that  this  was  an  irrepressible 
revolution.  If  Luther  had  been  weak,  or  if  he  had  been 
a  coward,  some  other  leader  would  have  taken  the  com- 
mand, and  the  Reformation  would  have  occurred  in  the 
same  age,  and  with  the  same  general  characteristics.  It 
is  not  possible  to  understand  this  great  movement  if  this 
inevitable  character  is  not  appreciated.  It  must  be  rec- 
ognized as  being,  like  the  French  Revolution,  the  burst- 
ing forth  of  the  deeper  forces  of  history,  through  the 
obstacles  that  confined  them,  sweeping  a  clear  road  for  a 
new  advance. 

Luther  did  not  create  the  Reformation.  He  was  the 
popular  leader  who  translated  into  the  terms  of  common 
life,  into  direct  and  passionate  words  that  came  close 
home  to  men  of  every  rank,  the  principles  of  religious, 
ecclesiastical,  and  intellectual  reform,  which  had  been 
proclaimed  before  him  in  more  remote  ways,  and  turned 
into  great  historic  forces  the  influences  which  had  been 
slowly  engendered  in  the  world  of  scholars  and  thinkers. 
He  was,  though  independent  himself,  the  popularizec  of 
other  men's  labors. 

But  the  Reformation,  as  it  really  occurred,  was  largely 
his  work.     His  powerful  personality  impressed  itself  upon 


THE   REFORMATION  417 

the  whole  movement.  He  gave  it  form  and  direction, 
and  personal  traits  of  his  became  characteristics  of  it, 
not  so  much,  perhaps,  because  they  were  his  personal 
traits,  as  because  they  were  an  expression  in  the  individ- 
ual of  the  tendencies  of  the  age.  Of  these  characteristics 
there  are  four  which  are  noteworthy,  as  especially  general 
and  lasting. 

In  the  first  place,  as  the  starting-point  of  all,  Luther 
was  one  of  those  not  infrequent  men,  usually  men  of  great 
moral  force  and  power,  who  are  perpetually  driven  by  a 
sense  of  personal  guilt  and  sin,  unfelt  by  the  general  run 
of  men,  and  by  a  compelling  necessity,  to  find  in  some 
way  a  counterbalancing  sense  of  reconciliation  with  God. 
This  feeling  it  was  which  led  him  into  the  monastery 
against  so  many  influences  to  keep  him  out.  But  he  did 
not  free  himself  from  it  by  this  step.  He  speedily  found 
the  insufficiency  of  the  best  means  at  the  disposal  of  the 
cloister,  of  worship  and  holy  works,  of  penance,  and  pri- 
vate prayer,  and  spiritual  meditation,  to  meet  the  need 
which  he  felt. 

This  was  because  of  another  characteristic  of  Luther's 
mind,  as  deep  and  impelling  as  his  sense  of  sin.  It  would 
be  absurd  to  deny  that  monasticism  has  furnished  a 
complete  and  final  spiritual  refuge  to  thousands  of  pi- 
ous souls  in  every  age.  But  they  have  been,  as  a  rule,  of 
the  contemplative  and  unquestioning  kind.  This  Luther 
certainly  was  not.  His  intellectual  nature  was  as  active 
as  his  moral.  The  demand  for  a  philosophical  theory  of 
the  process  by  which  reconciliation  with  God  takes  place, 
which  should  be  satisfactory  to  his  intellect,  was  as  im- 
perative as  the  demand  for  the  reconciliation  itself,  and 
the  one  was  not  possible  for  him  without  the  other. 

The  strong  theological  or  philosophical  bent  of  Luther's 
mind,  this  demand  for  an  intellectual  explanation  before 
the  soul  could  be  at  rest,  is  one  of  the  vital  points  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Reformation,  and  one  of  the  dominating 


4l8  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

characteristics  of  Protestantism  so  long  as  the  direct  in- 
fluence of  the  Reformation  age  lasted.  It  was  the  union 
in  Luther's  mind  of  these  two  elements — the  keen  sense 
of  guilt  and  the  demand  for  a  reasonable  theory  of  the 
means  of  relief — that  led  him  to  the  first,  and  wholly  un- 
conscious step  in  his  revolt  against  the  prevailing  church 
system.  Had  either  existed  alone  he  might  have  been 
satisfied  with  things  as  they  were.  But  when,  under  the 
heavy  spiritual  burden  which  he  felt,  he  turned,  with  his 
power  of  sharp  analysis,  to  the  accepted  doctrine  of  the 
efficacy  of  works,  of  acquired  merit,  it  failed  to  satisfy 
his  reason,  although  he  tested  it  in  the  genuine  ascetic 
spirit.  It  seemed  absurd  to  him  that  anything  which  he 
might  do  should  have  any  bearing  upon  the  removal  of 
his  guilt  in  the  sight  of  God.  If  a  sense  of  forgiveness  in 
which  he  could  rest  was  to  be  found,  he  must  obtain  from 
some  source  an  explanation  of  the  method  of  salvation 
which  should  differ  from  the  prevailing  one  in  placing  less 
emphasis  upon  the  action  of  the  individual  and  more 
upon  the  divine  agency. 

Luther  seems  to  have  worked  himself  out  from  this 
state  of  doubt  and  difficulty  through  long  and  heavy  ex- 
perience, and  with  the  aid  of  slight  suggestions  received 
from  various  sources,  from  Staupitz,  the  Vicar  of  his 
Order,  from  the  writings  of  St.  Bernard  and  of  Gerson, 
and,  perhaps,  from  men  less  known  to  history.  He  had 
been  from  the  beginning  of  his  fife  as  a  monk  a  most 
earnest  student  of  the  Bible,  as  prescribed  by  the  rules 
of  his  Order,  but  he  does  not  seem  to  have  found  any 
satisfactory  answer  to  his  needs  in  the  Bible  until  the 
suggestion  which  served  as  a  guide  to  him  in  his  search 
had  reached  him  from  some  outside  source  or  from  his 
own  experience.  When  he  had  obtained  from  such 
sources  the  suggestion  of  justification  by  faith,  of  salva- 
tion as  the  free  gift  of  God,  of  forgiveness  of  sins  as  the 
direct  result  of  the  redemption  made  by  Christ,  accepted 


THE   REFORMATION  419 

by  the  immediate  faith  of  the  sinner,  he  found  this  idea 
abundantly  supported  in  the  Scriptures,  and  easily 
wrought  into  a  logical  and  systematic  theory  under  the 
influence  of  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Paul  as  he  interpreted 
them.  Luther  had  read  St.  Augustine  to  some  extent 
before  he  had  hit  upon  the  idea  of  justification  by  faith, 
but  it  was  from  the  standpoint  of  the  later  scholastic 
theology,  which  had  no  sympathy  with  the  main  current 
of  St.  Augustine's  thought,  and  he  had  been  blind  to  his 
meaning.  Now,  however,  he  had  found  the  key,  and 
under  the  influence  of  his  new  reading  of  St.  Augustine, 
the  theoretical  side  of  his  belief  grew  rapidly  into  system- 
atic form,  though  to  a  form  slightly  different  from  that 
of  his  teacher,  and  he  found  his  confidence  that  he  had  dis- 
covered the  truth  greatly  strengthened.  So  thoroughly 
in  sympathy  did  he  become  with  the  ideas  of  the  great 
theologian  of  the  West  that  he  was  able  to  detect  the  spu- 
riousness  of  a  work  on  penances,  which  had  long  passed 
under  St.  Augustine's  name,  because  it  was  out  of  har- 
mony with  his  system  of  thought. 

This  result,  the  formation  of  a  clearer  theory  of  justi- 
fication by  faith  as  the  confident  and  satisfactory  answer 
to  the  need  of  personal  reconciliation  with  God  which  he 
felt,  was  the  first  step  in  the  Reformation,  the  great  step 
of  the  preparation  of  the  leader  to  take  command  of  the 
movement  when  the  crisis  should  arise  which  would  de- 
mand a  leader.  These  results  Luther  did  not  reach  until 
after  he  had  been  transferred  to  the  University  of  Wit- 
tenberg, but  they  were  in  definite  shape  and  part  of  his 
university  teaching  before  his  attention  had  been  called 
in  any  especial  v/ay  to  their  bearing  upon  the  current 
doctrine  of  indulgences. 

When  Luther  had  once  reached  these  conclusions  he 
held  them  and  defended  them  with  the  spirit  and  the 
methods  of  the  genuine  humanist.  He  attacked  with 
vigor  Aristotle  and  the  schoolmen.     He  appealed  to  the 


420  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

original  Christianity  and  to  its  early  documents  as  the 
only  valid  evidence,  and  he  handled  these  documents  in 
a  critical  spirit.  He  called  in  the  evidence  of  history 
against  the  papal  pretensions,  and  he  accepted  for  him- 
self without  hesitation  the  results  which  his  new  position 
logically  involved  in  opposition  to  the  reigning  theories 
of  the  church,  the  results,  that  is,  of  individual  inde- 
pendence and  of  the  right  of  private  judgment,  even  so 
far  as  to  a  complete  break  with  the  church.  Erasmus 
himself  was  scarcely  more  a  child  of  the  Renaissance  in 
spirit  and  in  methods  than  Luther.  This  is  the  third  of 
the  characteristics  of  Luther's  work  which  were  of  wide 
and  permanent  influence  in  the  larger  movement.  If  the 
great  principles  which  are  seen  and  stated  by  the  think- 
ers ever  give  a  fresh  impulse  to  the  world,  and  turn  the 
currents  of  history  in  new  directions,  it  is  because  they  are 
taken  possession  of  by  some  popular  leader  and  trans- 
formed from  the  abstract  into  the  concrete,  identified  with 
some  great  interest  of  life  held  dear  by  the  masses  of  men. 
This  Luther  did  for  the  principle  of  free  thought.  It 
had  been  asserted  long  before  him  in  the  world  of  schol- 
ars, but  Luther  now  associated  it  forever  with  one  of  the 
dearest  interests  of  the  race,  its  religious  aspirations,  so 
that  in  the  future  for  every  Bruno  who  might  be  found 
ready  to  die  for  the  philosopher's  freedom  of  thought,  a 
thousand  simple  men  would  gladly  embrace  the  stake  for 
the  Hberty  to  beheve  in  God  as  they  understood  him, 
against  whatever  authority,  and  the  right  of  free  thought 
was  henceforth  in  theory  at  least  counted  among  the 
most  sacred  rights  of  the  individual.^ 

But  it  must  be  admitted — so  far  as  the  evidence;  allows 

*  It  must  not  be  understood  that  what  is  here  said  means  that  Protes- 
tantism, or  any  Protestant  sect,  with  some  rare  and  imperfect  exceptions 
like  the  Independents  of  England,  for  a  long  time  to  come  recognized  the 
right  of  free  thought  for  any  but  itself.  The  appeal  to  the  right  of  private 
iudgment  within  Protestantism  was  for  many  generations  the  appeal  of  the 
rebel  against  authority  as  truly  as  in  the  case  of  Luther.     What  is  meant 


THE   REFORMATION  42 1 

US  to  judge,  and  it  seems  to  be  conclusive — that  Luther 
did  not  reach  the  theological  position  which  necessitated 
his  rebellion  against  the  church  and  his  assertion  of  the 
right  of  free  thought,  as  a  result  of  the  influence  of  the 
Renaissance  upon  him,  nor  by  the  use  of  the  humanistic 
methods  of  study.  On  the  contrary,  it  seems  that  he  was 
led  to  adopt  the  principles  of  the  Renaissance  because 
that  result  was  involved  in  his  determination  to  maintain 
the  theological  conclusions  which  he  had  reached.  It 
was  along  the  medieval  road  that  Luther  had  advanced 
• — the  study  of  the  schoolmen,  dependence  upon  specula- 
tion and  authority,  the  use  of  the  Bible  as  a  theological 
text-book — and  the  result  which  he  reached  was  merely 
the  putting  of  one  theological  system  in  place  of  another. 
Careful  researches  appear  to  make  it  certain  that,  even  in 
his  student  days,  in  the  university  of  Erfurt,  and  before 
his  entry  into  the  cloister,  Luther  did  not  come  under  the 
direct  influence  of  Humanism  to  any  such  extent  as  was 
formerly  supposed.  It  may  have  been  that  its  results 
and  its  spirit  were  in  the  air,  and  were  absorbed  by  Luther 
unconsciously;  but  it  is  far  more  likely  that  he  arrived  at 
its  fundamental  position  from  another  side,  as  the  Wal- 
denses  and  Wyclift'e  and  Huss  had  done,  before  the  Re- 
naissance began,  and  found  himself  in  harmony  with  the 
principle  of  free  inquiry  and  free  opinion,  because  that 
principle,  in  face  of  the  dominant  theocracy,  seemed  the 
unavoidable  corollary  of  his  answer  to  the  question, 
which  was  for  all  the  reformers,  early  and  late,  a  purely 
religious  question:  What  is  the  means  of  union  between 
God  and  man  revealed  to  us  in  Christianity,  and  what 
does  it  require  of  us? 

is  that  logically  Protestantism  rested  upon  this  basis;  that  this  principle 
must  be  continuallj^  asserting  itself  in  the  Protestant  world  in  the  multi- 
plication of  sects  all  virtually  appealing  to  it;  and  that,  however  intolerant 
the  individual  man  or  sect  might  be  in  asserting  the  position  of  exclusive 
truth,  practically  except  where  government  interfered  the  right  of  rebellion 
had  to  be  recognized. 


422  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

This  fact  does  not  make  Luther's  indebtedness  to  the 
Renaissance  any  the  less.  The  position  of  opposition  to 
old  beliefs  which  Luther's  conclusions  forced  him  to  take 
was  one  with  which  the  world  was  now  familiar,  thanks 
to  that  movement,  and  the  emancipated  judgment  and 
conscience  of  thousands  in  every  land  were  ready  to  fol- 
low him,  or,  if  circumstances  rendered  it  impossible  for 
some  to  follow,  at  least  to  sympathize  fully  with  the  stand 
he  had  taken  and  with  his  aims.  And  we  have  indicated 
the  aid  which  he  received  in  other  ways  from  the  results 
of  the  revival  of  learning.  But  many  things  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  Reformation  and  of  early  Protestantism  will 
remain  difficult  to  understand,  unless  it  be  remembered 
that  if  Luther  was  a  child  of  the  Renaissance,  as  has  been 
said,  he  was  an  adopted  child.  He  was  not  by  nature 
the  heir  of  its  spirit,  nor  of  all  its  tendencies.  He  ac- 
cepted its  principles  and  its  methods  because  they  were 
necessary  to  him,  not  because  he  had  been  formed  under 
their  influence,  and  must  therefore  give  them  expression 
in  his  action.  And  he  never  adopted  them  completely 
nor  in  all  their  logical  results.  He  asserted  for  himself 
the  right  of  free  thought.  But  when  the  same  principle 
began  to  be  applied  against  his  doctrines  by  the  numer- 
ous sects  which  sprang  up  as  one  of  the  first  and  natural 
results  of  the  Reformation,  he  did  not  recognize  their 
right  with  equal  clearness.  The  behef  which  the  early 
Protestant  shared  with  the  Catholic  in  the  vital  impor- 
tance of  theological  opinion,  made  it  easy  for  him  to  adopt 
the  fundamental  principle  of  all  intolerance  that  freedom 
of  thought  means  only  the  freedom  of  the  conscience  to 
hold  the  truth,  and  therefore  as  the  system  which  he  held 
contained  the  truth,  no  opposing  doctrine  could  have  any 
rights.  As  thoroughly  characteristic  of  Luther  as  any 
of  the  three  traits  which  have  been  mentioned — his  spir- 
itual sense,  his  philosophical  tendency,  and  his  human- 
istic spirit — was  this  fourth  trait  also  of  intellectual  njir- 


THE   REFORMATION  423 

rowness,  that  is,  the  fact  that  he  remained  to  the  end  of  his 
Kfe,  upon  one  side  of  his  nature,  a  medieval  monk.  That 
this  was  in  complete  contradiction  with  his  own  funda- 
mental position,  and  with  the  methods  by  which  he  de- 
fended himself,  gave  him  no  uneasiness.  He  had  not  the 
slightest  consciousness  of  self-contradiction,  nor  had  any 
of  the  early  Protestants,  who  were  Hke  him  in  this  regard. 
So  intense  was  their  interest  in  the  theological  theories 
which  seemed  to  them  to  contain  the  whole  truth  that 
their  eyes  were  closed  to  all  else,  and  it  was  only  here  and 
there  during  the  first  two  hundred  years  after  the  Ref- 
ormation that  official  Protestantism  really  escaped  from 
the  medieval  point  of  view  and  became  true  to  itself  in 
its  attitude  towards  dissenting  thought. 

By  a  medieval  method  Luther  had  reached  a  result 
which  was  mainly  intellectual,  that  is  theological,  in 
character,  and  which  was  to  bring  him,  in  some  of  the 
most  decisive  consequences  of  his  work,  into  harmony 
with  the  great  intellectual  movement  of  the  end  of  the 
middle  ages.  But  the  strong  impelHng  force  in  Luther's 
development,  it  must  be  remembered,  that  which  had 
started  him  in  this  direction  and  which  carried  him  on 
irresistibly  to  the  conclusions  he  had  reached,  was  the 
spiritual  necessity  of  personal  reconcihation  with  God,^ 
■a,  religious  need  so  deeply  felt  that  its  satisfaction  involved 
as  matters  of  secondary  import  all  the  rest,  rebelHon 
against  the  old  church  with  its  infallible  authority,  the 
adoption  of  all  the  current  popular  demands  of  religious 
and  ecclesiastical  reform,  as  closely  related  ends,  and  of 
the  principles  established  by  the  Renaissance  as  indis- 

*The  clearly  intellectual  element  so  prominent  in  the  Reformation  and 
the  identification  which  the  reformers  themselves  so  strenuously  made  of 
theology,  that  is,  a  great  intellectual  interest,  with  religion  should  not  lead 
us  to  overlook  the  fact,  as  they  have  some  recent  writers,  that  the  Reforma- 
tion was  primarily,  in  origin,  purpose,  and  result,  a  religious  movement.  It 
is  quite  impossible  to  explain  it  fully  by  a  study  of  its  intellectual  antece- 
dents alone. 


424  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

pensable  allies.  And  now  it  must  be  noticed  that  this 
religious  element  in  Luther's  character  was  also  the  mov- 
ing force  in  his  next  step,  in  the  first  public  act  of  his 
which  opened  the  Reformation. 

Not  very  long  after  Luther  had  reached  the  results  in 
which  he  rested,  and  after  he  had  begun  to  teach  them 
in  his  lectures  on  the  Bible,  Tetzel  came  into  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Wittenberg  preaching  a  peculiarly  crude  and 
debasing  theory  of  the  efficacy  of  indulgences  for  the 
forgiveness  of  sins — there  can  be  no  doubt  of  this,  how- 
ever much  Tetzel  may  have  modified  the  worst  crudities 
when  he  came  to  put  his  words  into  print — and  attract- 
ing much  attention  among  the  people.  Luther  was  in- 
stantly aroused.  He  had  already  preached  against  the 
popular  trust  in  indulgences,  but  now  something  further 
was  demanded  and  the  ninety-five  theses  were  posted. 
In  this  act  Luther  was  following  a  common  university 
custom.  The  theses  were  propositions  which  he  proposed 
to  defend  in  set  debate  against  all  comers.  They  stated 
the  beliefs  on  the  subject  which  Luther  had  reached,  but 
they  also  contained  some  things  of  which  he  was  not 
entirely  sure,  and  some  things  whose  full  bearing  he  did 
not  see.  They  were  stated  in  scholastic  form,  and  not 
intended  for  the  general  circulation  which  they  received. 

It  is  certain  that  the  moving  purpose  in  this  step  of 
Luther's  was  religious  rather  than  theological.  The  form 
was  theological,  but  what  he  had  most  nearly  at  heart 
was  the  practical  object.  It  was  to  save  men  from  a 
fatal  delusion,  from  trust  in  a  false  and  destroying  method 
of  salvation,  and  to  bring  them  back  to  the  true  Christian 
faith  as  he  saw  it  that  he  attacked  the  popular  ideas.  All 
the  other  things  which  followed  as  later  consequences  of 
this  action  were  unintended  and  unforeseen  by  him.  In 
regard  to  some  of  them,  if  he  had  seen  that  he  was  likely 
to  be  led  on  to  them,  he  would  undoubtedly,  feeling  as 
he  then  did,  have  hesitated  long  before  taking  the  first 


THE   REFORMATION  425 

step.  He  believed  that  he  was  defending  the  theology 
of  the  church  against  ideas  which  had  become  prevalent 
but  which  were  nevertheless  abuses.  The  seventy-first 
of  his  theses  pronounces  a  woe  upon  those  who  speak 
against  the  truth  of  apostolic  indulgences,  and  the  seventy- 
second  a  blessing  upon  those  who  object  to  the  loose  words 
of  the  preachers  of  indulgences.  But  the  leading  motive 
of  his  action  was  not  his  wish  to  put  the  true  theology  in 
place  of  the  false  as  a  matter  of  science,  it  was  his  zeal 
for  the  souls  of  men,  lost,  as  he  believed,  through  a  mis- 
taken belief. 

The  effect  of  the  publication  of  the  theses  was  a  sur- 
prise to  Luther.  In  two  weeks,  he  says,  they  had  gone 
through  all  Germany.  In  four  weeks,  says  a  contempo- 
rary, they  had  gone  through  all  Christendom  as  if  the 
angels  themselves  had  been  the  messengers.^  Luther 
had  intended  to  influence  opinion  in  Wittenberg  and 
vicinity,  scarcely  at  all  beyond,  but  the  effect  was  univer- 
sal, so  deep  was  the  preparation  for  them  which  no  one 
had  suspected.  Instinctively,  as  it  were,  the  public  rec- 
ognized the  declaration  of  war,  more  clearly  than  the 
leader  himself,  and  instantly  the  hosts  began  to  gather 
and  to  draw  up  against  one  another.  The  next  two  years 
was  a  period  of  rapid  development  in  Luther's  under- 
standing of  his  real  position  towards  the  old  church,  and 
of  what  he  would  be  obliged  to  do  if  he  was  resolved  to 
maintain  that  position.  It  was  because  he  had  reached 
his  conclusions  by  the  pathway  of  inner  experience  that  he 
was  so  slow  to  realize  all  that  they  meant,  but  the  logic  of 
the  events  which  followed  the  publication  of  the  theses 
was  sharp  and  clear. 

The  first  result  was  to  bring  Luther  to  see  that  some 
points  which  he  had  stated  were  in  reality  opposed  to 
the  accepted  church  theology,  and  not  in  harmony  with 
it,  as  he  had  thought.     He  was  also  made  to  realize  that 

*  Koestlin,  Martin  Luther,  vol.  I,  p.  172. 


426  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  question  of  the  relation  of  the  pope  to  the  church  was 
necessarily  involved.  This  was  the  weak  spot  in  Luther's 
case,  and  was  especially  selected  by  his  opponents  for 
attack.  It  had  been  far  from  his  intention  to  raise  the 
question,  but  he  did  not  shrink  from  it  when  it  was 
pressed  upon  him.  It  was  in  this  direction,  indeed,  and 
not  so  much  in  any  other,  that  further  growth  was  nec- 
essary for  him.  He  began  believing  in  the  infalHbility 
of  the  church  certainly,  if  not  in  that  of  the  pope,  and 
in  the  duty  of  the  individual  to  submit  his  judgment  to 
the  judgment  of  the  church.  But  the  attacks  which 
were  made  upon  him  during  these  two  years  forced  him 
to  other  views.  Step  by  step  he  was  led  on  from  his  as- 
sertion to  Cardinal  Cajetan  that  the  declaration  of  the 
pope  was  to  be  regarded  as  the  voice  of  God  only  when  it 
was  in  conformity  with  the  Bible,  and  his  statement  in 
writing  that  a  general  council  of  the  church  might  err,  to 
the  final  position  of  complete  rebellion,  into  which  he 
was  forced  by  the  skill  of  Dr.  Eck  in  the  great  debate  in 
Leipsic,  in  15 19,  that  the  church  universal  might  be  in 
error  in  some  formally  adopted  declaration,  and  was  so 
regarding  Huss.  Henceforth  his  position  in  regard  to 
the  old  church  was  logically  complete.  He  must  make 
war  upon  it,  and  establish  an  independent  church  if  he 
could,  or  he  must  submit  and  be  burned  as  a  heretic. 
The  burning  of  the  pope's  bull,  in  December,  1520,  was 
only  an  especially  public  and  dramatic  repetition  of  dec- 
larations already  clearly  made. 

The  primary  meaning  of  the  Reformation  is  religious. 
It  was  a  rehgious  motive  from  which  the  reformers  acted, 
and  a  religious  result  which  they  sought  as  their  supreme 
object.  In  this  direction  what  they  consciously  attempted, 
was  to  return  to  a  more  simple  and  truer  Christianity 
from  the  additions  and  corruptions  which  the  middle  ages 
had  introduced.     And  in  many  and  essential  respects,  the 


THE    REFORMATION  427 

Reformation  did  make  such  a  return.  In  ceremonies  and 
in  forms  of  government  the  Protestant  of  any  name  is 
undoubtedly  nearer  to  the  original  Christianity  than  the 
Catholic.  In  the  matter  of  the  abuses  and  oppressions  of 
which  Europe  complained  so  bitterly  just  before  the 
Reformation,  not  merely  was  a  great  change  worked  in 
Protestant  lands,  but  also  in  the  Catholic  church  itself. 
The  work  of  Luther  forced  a  reformation  which  was,  in  the 
most  important  particulars,  thorough  and  complete.  It 
is  true  that  such  a  reform  would  have  been  made  in  the 
Catholic  church  in  time  without  Luther,  but  the  attack 
which  he  led  forced  a  more  speedy  and  perhaps  a  more 
decided  change  than  would  otherwise  have  taken  place. 
In  administration  and  in  morals  the  Catholic  church  has 
been,  since  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  a  reformed 
church. 

In  regard  to  the  more  directly  religious  question  which 
the  reformers  had  especially  at  heart,  the  question  of  the 
reconciliation  of  the  sinner  with  God,  it  can  hardly  be 
denied  that  the  Reformation  was,  also,  a  return  to  a 
more  primitive  and  truer  Christianity.  Divested  of 
technical  statement  the  work  of  the  Reformation  in  this 
respect  was  to  emphasize  the  immediate  personal  rela- 
tion between  God  and  man,  and  to  bring  into  practical 
consciousness  far  more  clearly  than  had  been  done  under 
the  old  system  the  fact  that  individual  faith  in  Christ  as 
the  Saviour  is  the  centre  and  source  of  the  religious  life.^ 
Undoubtedly  this  fact  had  been  realized  by  thousands  of 
saintly  men  in  the  medieval  centuries,  undoubtedly,  also, 
the  religiously  cultivated  soul  may  realize  it  as  truly  in 
the  Roman  as  in  any  church,  but  it  is  also  equally  certain 

'Dr.  Philip  Schaff  says:  " Schleiermacher  reduced  the  whole  difEerence 
between  Romanism  and  Protestantism  to  the  formula,  'Romanism  makes 
the  relation  of  the  individual  to  Christ  depend  on  his  relation  to  the  church; 
Protestantism,  vice  versa,  makes  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  the  church 
depend  on  his  relation  to  Christ.'" — Pamphlet,  Luther  Svmpofiac.  Union 
Seminary,  1883. 


428  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

that  the  Protestant  church  keeps  this  fact  much  more 
clearly  and  distinctly  before  the  mass  of  men  than  does 
the  Catholic,  and  makes  its  full  realization  easier  for 
them.  The  crude  abuses  of  the  Catholic  teaching  which 
led  to  the  first  public  protest  of  Luther  have  been  com- 
paratively rare  since  that  time.  But  it  is  a  fact  of  easy 
observation  that  the  doctrine  of  that  church  upon  this 
point  is  often  misunderstood  by  the  more  ignorant,  and, 
when  misunderstood,  lends  itself  as  readily  to-day  as  in 
the  days  of  Tetzel  to  debasing  behefs  and  to  practices  that 
are  essentially  pagan.^ 

If,  however,  the  main  object  which  the  reformers 
sought  was  rehgious  their  way  of  looking  at  it  was  theo- 
logical, was  under  the  form  of  a  doctrine  rather  than  of 
a  principle  of  life.  The  improved  doctrinal  statement 
seemed  to  them  the  greatest  improvement  made.  It  was 
the  right  to  hold  this  for  which  they  contended.  It  was 
the  impossibihty  of  holding  it  in  the  old  church  which 
had  forced  them  to  withdraw  from  it  and  to  form  an 
independent  church.  Indeed,  the  whole  religious  life 
seemed  to  them  so  completely  controlled  and  condi- 
tioned by  the  theological  opinion  that  they  were  dis- 
posed to  deny  the  possibility  of  its  existence  under  any 
form  of  doctrine  different  from  their  own,  and  that  which 
sustained  alike  the  Protestant  and  the  Catholic  martyr 
of  this  time  in  his  sufferings  was  not  merely  the  religious 
life  which  was  alike  in  both — no  Protestant  can  doubt 
this  who  studies  the  life  of  Sir  Thomas  More — but  it 
was  his  earnest  conviction  that  the  religious  life  of  which 
he  was  conscious  was  inseparably  bound  up  with  the  in- 
tellectual system  which  he  held  and  h'3  supreme  devotion 
to  that  system  and  to  his  rights  as  he  conceived  them  in 
an  age  of  bitter  conflict  of  opinion. 

*  See,  for  example,  the  Book  of  the  Scapular  and  the  beliefs  associated  with 
the  wearing  of  that  article  among  ignorant  Catholics,  undoubtedly  without 
the  real  sanction  of  the  church. 


THE   REFORMATION  429 

This  prevailingly  theological  character  of  early  Prot- 
estantism has  already  been  emphasized.  But  certain 
consequences  of  it  in  modern  times  and  to-day  should  be 
noticed.  In  the  first  place,  it  made  the  more  zealous 
Protestants,  and  especially  those  who  were  under  an 
official  responsibility  for  the  safety  of  their  faith,  as  intol- 
erant of  opposing,  or,  as  they  thought,  dangerous,  opinions 
as  the  Catholic,  and  for  the  same  reason,  the  supposed 
vital  necessity  of  a  correct  theology.^  In  most  cases  state 
churches  as  rigidly  organized  and  as  devotedly  supported 
by  the  laws,  took  the  place  of  the  old  ecclesiastical  sys- 
tem. The  roll  of  Protestant  martyrs  made  by  Protestant 
bigotry  is  not  a  short  nor  an  inglorious  one,  and  new 
theories  in  the  sciences  had  always  bitter  opposition  to 
meet  from  Protestant  theologians.  Only  slowly,  and  aided 
largely  by  commercial  considerations,  was  full  toleration 
estabhshed  as  the  rule,  but  it  has  been  reserved  to  the 
present  age,  with  a  few  glorious  exceptions,  and  to  a 
growing  understanding  of  the  true  position  which  theo- 
logical opinion  holds  in  religion,  to  bring  Protestantism 
to  a  consciousness  of  its  own  logical  position,  and  to  se- 

^  The  following  passage,  quoted  in  Hausser's  Period  of  the  Reformation, 
p.  520  (Am.  ed.),  from  Hohenegg,  Lutheran  court  theologian  of  Saxony  dur- 
ing the  Thirty  Years'  War,  is  an  interesting  example:  "For  it  is  as  plain  as 
that  the  sun  shines  at  midda}',  that  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  is  full  of  fright- 
ful blasphemy,  horrible  error  and  mischief,  and  is  diametrically  opposed  to 
God's  holy  revealed  word.  To  take  up  arms  for  the  Calvinists  is  nothing 
else  than  to  serve  under  the  originator  of  Calvinism — the  Devil.  We  ought, 
indeed,  to  give  our  lives  for  our  brethren;  but  the  Calvinists  are  not  our 
brethren  in  Christ;  to  support  them  would  be  to  offer  ourselves  and  our 
children  to  ISIoloch.  We  ought  to  love  our  enemies,  but  the  Calvinists  are 
not  our  enemies  but  God's." 

John  Cotton,  in  his  argument  with  Roger  Williams  on  persecution,  rep- 
resents, I  suppose,  fairly  the  position  of  most  of  the  early  Protestants.  He 
says:  "I  doe  not  thinke  it  lawful!  to  excommunicate  an  Heretick,  much  lesse 
to  persecute  him  with  the  civill  Sword,  till  it  may  appeare,  even  by  just 
and  full  conviction,  that  he  sinneth  not  out  of  conscience,  but  against  the 
very  light  of  his  own  conscience." — Narraganset  Club  Publications,  vol.  II, 
p.  61.  That  Cotton's  position  was  exactly  that  of  the  Roman  church  Wil- 
liams was  not  slow  to  point  out.     See  Ibid.,  vol.  IV,  p.  57. 


430  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

cure  complete  religious  liberty  in  Protestant  states,  though 
evidently  not  as  yet  with  the  universal  extinction  of  the 
old  feelings. 

In  the  second  place,  the  strong  intellectual  tendency  in 
Protestantism  pushed  the  sermon  to  the  front  as  a  more 
prominent  portion  of  the  church  service  than  it  had  been. 
The  Catholic  was  and  is  more  a  religion  of  worship,  less 
a  religion  of  individual  thought  and  conviction.  Protes- 
tantism implies  more  intellectual  activity  among  the  lay 
membership  and  an  interest  on  their  part  in  the  problems 
of  theology.  When  there  was,  in  truth,  such  an  interest 
in  the  community  at  large  in  theological  discussion,  often 
the  most  intense  interest  of  the  time,  there  could  hardly 
be  too  many  or  too  long  sermons.  But  it  is  clear  that  a 
popular  interest  of  the  old  kind  in  such  discussions  does 
not  exist  to-day.  It  would  not  be  possible  for  any  body 
of  average  Protestants  of  the  present  time  to  ''beguile  the 
weariness"  of  a  long  sea- voyage  with  three  sermons  a 
day,  of  the  Puritan  sort,  as  is  recorded  of  the  passengers 
of  the  Griffin,  on  their  way  to  the  Massachusetts  colony 
in  1633.  From  this  fact  arises  one  of  the  practical  prob- 
lems which  the  Protestant  churches  are  discussing — how 
to  increase  the  interest  in  the  sermon— and  this  explains 
also  one  of  the  elements  of  attraction  which  many,  trained 
under  the  more  rigid  Protestant  services,  find  in  forms  of 
service  which  have  retained  more  of  the  element  of  wor- 
ship, or  even  for  the  forms  of  the  Roman  church  itself. 

The  result  of  the  Reformation  in  the  direction  of  intel- 
lectual freedom  is  now  evident.  It  planted  itself  squarely 
on  the  principles  enunciated  by  the  Revival  of  Learning,^ 

*  The  protest  of  the  German  princes  and  cities  against  the  action  of  the 
Diet,  in  1529,  from  which  the  name  Protestant  comes,  grounds  itself  on  the 
principle  that  the  majority  has  no  right  to  bind  the  conscience  of  the  mi- 
nority. 

It  is  at  this  point,  also,  that  the  greatest  barrier  still  exists  between  the 
Roman  and  the  Protestant  forms  of  Christianity.  It  may  be  as  difl&cult 
now  for  the  Roman  church  to  modify  its  official  theology  as  it  was  in  the 


THE   REFORMATION  43 1 

but  those  who  led  the  movement  did  not  do  so  from 
choice,  and  their  support  of  liberty  of  thought  was  never 
more  than  half-hearted.  But  they  could  not  control  the 
consequences  of  their  action.  The  general  result  was  an 
atmosphere  of  intellectual  independence  and  inquiry  in 
all  Protestant  countries,  seen  in  the  rapid  multiplication 
of  religious  sects,  which  could  not  be  checked,  and  in  the 
history  of  philosophy,  science,  and  the  book-trade.  The 
intellectual  history  of  the  world  since  the  Reformation  is 
the  history  of  the  growing  prevalence  of  this  spirit  in 
Protestant  countries  and  of  its  introduction  into  countries 
in  which  the  Roman  church  prevailed,  as  the  result  of  the 
sceptical  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  of  the 
French  Revolution. 

There  should  be  added  to  complete  the  statement  of 
the  influence  of  the  Reformation  the  more  detailed  results 
which  are  often  referred  to  but  cannot  be  here  treated  at 
length.  Such  is  its  influence  on  the  study  of  the  Bible 
by  people  of  all  classes,  a  result  especially  marked  in 
Anglo-Saxon  countries,  and  not  without  its  influence  on 
Roman  Catholic  policy;  its  influence  on  public  schools  of 
the  lower  grades;  on  the  fixing  of  the  literary  forms  of 

days  of  Luther,  but  to  the  most  inteUigent  Protestants  of  to-day,  undoubt- 
edly, the  theological  difference  seems  a  less  vital  difference  than  to  the 
early  reformers.  But  no  intelligent  Protestant  can  ever  surrender  his  right 
to  hold  that  theological  opinion  which  seems  to  him,  individually,  the  most 
reasonable.  It  is  equally  impossible  for  the  Roman  church  to  surrender  its 
fundamental  position  that  a  correct  theological  belief  is  a  necessity  of  the 
Christian  faith,  and  that  the  church  is  able,  under  especial  divine  guidance, 
to  determine  which  of  two  var>-ing  theological  opinions  is  the  only  correct 
one,  and  has  the  right  to  require  all  men  to  believe  this  alone  if  they  would 
be  counted  Christians.  Authorities  of  the  Roman  church  may  say  much 
upon  their  sympathy  with  free  thought,  but  their  definition  of  free  thought 
must  always  remain  different  from  that  which  prevails  in  the  Protestant 
world.  The  qualification  is  always  expressed  or  implied  that  freedom  is  not 
Ucense,  and  that  true  freedom  consists  in  submission  to  legitimate  author- 
ity— terms,  again,  which  must  be  interpreted  from  the  Roman  point  of  view. 
That  church  can  never  abandon  its  claim  to  determine  what  particular 
thought  it  is  which  shall  be  free,  without  abandoning  the  one  most  essential 
thing  which  distinguishes  it  from  the  Protestant. 


432  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

national  languages;  and  on  the  use  of  the  printing-press 
to  influence  pubHc  opinion. 

The  Reformation,  as  was  implied  at  the  beginning  of 
the  chapter,  completes  the  history  of  the  middle  ages. 
The  church  was  the  institution  which  had  tarried  farthest 
behind  in  the  progress  of  the  later  centuries,  and  the 
Reformation  was  the  revolution  by  which,  for  a  large 
part  of  the  church,  the  medieval  was  transformed  into 
the  modern.  In  matters  directly  religious,  to  escape  from 
the  medieval  was  the  object  most  earnestly  sought  by  the 
reformers.  In  other  respects  the  transformation  took 
place  against  their  will  and  without  their  knowledge,  but 
it  took  place.  For  a  portion  of  the  church,  however,  this 
was  not  the  case.  That  part  of  it  which  remained  faith- 
ful to  Rome  did,  indeed,  in  some  points  share  the  change, 
notably  in  the  matter  of  moral  and  ecclesiastical  abuses, 
but  in  its  chief  theories  and  its  distinguishing  doctrines 
the  Roman  church  remained  medieval.  Its  theory  of 
continued  inspiration  and  continued  miracles;  its  belief 
in  the  infallibility  of  the  church  or  of  the  pope,  as  built 
upon  that  theory;  its  doctrines  of  transubstantiation  and 
of  supererogatory  merit,  are  all  medieval,  based  upon 
mental  conceptions  and  habits  of  thought  which  are  for- 
eign to  the  mind  of  to-day. 

In  general,  also,  the  Reformation  must  not  be  judged, 
as  seems  now  and  then  to  be  the  tendency,  to  be  some- 
thing final.  It  was  but  one  phase  in  a  constant  process, 
gaining  a  peculiar  importance  because  of  its  violent  and 
revolutionary  character  due  to  the  fact  that  the  process 
had  not  been  permitted  to  go  on  naturally.  If  it  is  allow- 
able to  judge  our  own  age,  its  great  work,  religiously  and 
intellectually,  has  been  to  carry  a  long  step  farther  the 
principles  which  the  Reformation  incompletely  realized. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

SUMMARY 

We  have  now  followed  the  course  of  European  civili- 
zation from  the  time  when  the  various  streams  which 
united  to  form  it  were  drawing  together  at  the  close  of 
ancient  history,  until  all  its  various  elements  were  com- 
pletely united  and  had  begun  the  more  rapid  advance 
which  we  term  modern  history.  It  is  clearly  a  period  of 
preparation,  not  in  the  sense,  however,  in  which  every 
age  in  history  is  a  preparation  for  the  following  age.  It 
was  not  so  much,  as  now,  a  preparation  in  institutions, 
discoveries,  and  ideas,  though  there  was  something  of 
this.  It  was  rather  a  preparation  of  men.  It  is  a  period 
of  history  in  which  the  races  that  have  created  modern 
civilization  were  brought  together  and  united  in  the  or- 
ganic system  which  we  call  Christendom,  in  which  the 
ideas  and  institutions  which  each  contributed  were  also 
united  into  a  common  whole,  and  in  which  men  were 
prepared  to  add  to  the  results  of  distinctly  medieval 
times,  not  slight  in  some  directions,  the  higher  products 
of  ancient  civilization  which  they  had  been  unable  to 
comprehend  until  near  the  close  of  the  period.  With 
this  preparation  completed,  and  this  final  union  made, 
the  modern  spirit  entered  into  history,  and  made  itself 
master,  in  succession,  of  the  various  departments  of  civ- 
ilization. 

The  two  fundamental  facts  in  this  process  of  union  are 
the  Roman  Empire  and  the  Christian  church.  The  jlr«t 
in  the  order  of  time  was  the  Roman  Empire.     It  united 

433 


434  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  ancient  world  into  a  common  whole,  which  was  in  all 
essential  respects  as  organic  a  union  as  modern  Chris- 
tendom. The  two  great  classical  civilizations — the  Greek, 
of  art  and  literature  and  science  and  philosophy;  the 
Roman,  of  law  and  government  and  practical  skill — were 
blended  into  a  world  civihzation  in  which  the  best  ele- 
ments of  various  tribal  civilizations  became  the  property 
of  all  men.  This  common  whole  which  Rome  created 
was  never  afterwards  destroyed.  The  keen  sense  of  it, 
the  cosmopolitan  feeling  which  was  characteristic  of  the 
best  days  of  the  empire,  declined.  Europe  threatened 
at  times  to  break  into  fragments,  but  such  a  result  never 
happened.  The  old  force  which  had  at  first  maintained 
the  union — the  idea  of  Rome — grew  weaker  and  disap- 
peared, but  not  until  a  new  one — the  church — had  arisen 
to  take  its  place.  Christendom  is  the  creation  of  this 
new  force  upon  the  foundation  which  the  Roman  Empire 
had  laid. 

Into  this  empire,  in  its  earliest  age,  before  the  decay 
had  been  detected  which  had  already  begun,  entered 
Christianity,  spreading  slowly  at  first,  then  more  rapidly 
and  among  higher  classes.  Before  its  third  century  was 
completed  it  had  become  the  recognized  religion  of  the 
imperial  court.  In  the  age  of  its  more  rapid  expansion 
it  absorbed  not  only  the  pagan  society  but  also  pagan 
ideas,  and  became  less  spiritual  and  more  formal.  Cere- 
monies and  doctrinal  beliefs  multiplied.  The  simple  or- 
ganization of  primitive  days  gave  place  to  a  complicated 
but  strong  hierarchy,  over  which  the  bishop  of  Rome 
had  already  begun  to  assert  his  headship  and  to  secure, 
in  a  part  of  the  church,  its  recognition.  This  strong 
organization  arose,  creating  a  real  unity  throughout  the 
provinces  of  the  West,  at  the  moment  when  they  were 
falling  apart  politically.  When  they  had  become  wholly 
independent  kingdoms  it  remained  a  living  bond  of  union 
between  them. 


SUMMARY  435 

Before  this  point  was  reached  the  fatal  weakness  of 
the  Roman  Empire  had  become  evident.  The  occupa- 
tion of  the  world  by  the  Romans  had  exhausted  their 
strength.  There  had  been  no  opportunity  under  the 
empire  to  root  out  the  moral  and  economic  evils  which 
had  begun  their  existence  in  the  last  days  of  the  repub- 
lic, nor  to  recover  the  losses  which  they  continually  in- 
flicted. Beyond  the  frontier,  in  every  generation,  a 
watchful  enemy  made  trial  of  the  Roman  strength,  and 
at  last  found  it  insufficient.  In  the  fifth  century  every 
province  of  the  Wesf  was  taken  possession  of  by  the 
Germans,  and  the  fourth  great  source  of  the  elements 
which  were  to  be  combined  in  medieval  times  was  brought 
into  connection  with  the  other  three.  Teutonic  king- 
doms were  founded,  Ostrogothic  in  Italy,  Visigothic  in 
Spain,  Vandal  in  Africa,  Burgundian  in  the  Rhone  valley, 
Saxon  in  England,  Prankish  in  Gaul,  and  finally,  Lombard 
in  North  Italy,  but  in  the  end  they  were  all  overthrown 
except  the  Frankish  and  the  Saxon.  These  were  the  two 
peoples  destined  in  the  end  to  be  the  especially  active 
agents  in  the  transmission  of  institutions  and  law  through 
the  middle  ages. 

The  apparent  result  of  the  Teutonic  settlement  was 
ruinous  to  civilization.  Disorder,  ignorance,  and  super- 
stition, which  were  already  beginning,  were  intensified 
by  the  conquest.  But  the  ruin  was  more  in  appearance 
than  in  reality.  Even  before  the  invasion  most  of  the 
German  tribes  were  prepared  to  respect  many  things 
which  they  found  among  the  Romans,  and  almost  imme- 
diately the  two  influences  which  were  the  chief  agents  in 
their  absorption,  the  Christian  church  and  the  idea  of 
Rome,  began  to  work  upon  them.  The  process  of  union 
and  recovery  was  slow,  necessarily  slow,  because  of  the 
weakness  of  the  recuperative  influences,  and  of  the  rough- 
ness of  the  material  upon  which  they  acted.  For  three 
centuries  history  is  filled  with  the  shifting  of  peoples  and 


436  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  rise  and  fall  of  states,  with  no  apparent  gain  of  sta- 
bility or  security,  the  first  requisites  of  progress.  The 
first  great  advance  which  gave  promise  of  better  things 
was  the  empire  of  Charlemagne  at  the  beginning  of  the 
ninth  century. 

The  first  Carolingians  had  restored  the  strength  of  the 
Prankish  state,  and  recovered  the  lands  conquered  by  the 
early  Merovingians.  On  this  foundation  Charlemagne 
erected  an  empire  rivalling  in  extent  the  Western  Roman 
Empire.  But  his  revival  of  the  title  of  Emperor  in  the 
West  was  not  alone  justified  by  the  extent  of  the  terri- 
tory over  which  he  ruled.  All  things  for  which  the  name 
of  Rome  stood,  in  the  minds  of  those  who  still  remem- 
bered it,  were  represented  in  that  day  by  the  Prankish 
empire.  Order  and  security,  general  legislation,  a  com- 
mon government  for  many  different  peoples,  the  fostering 
of  schools  and  religion,  a  promise  of  permanence  for  the 
future,  all  these  were  connected  with  the  name  of  Charle- 
magne, and  we  may  add  the  fact — ^of  which  they  were 
less  conscious — the  speedy  union  into  a  single  people  of 
the  two  races,  the  conquerors  and  the  conquered.  His 
empire  was  not  permanent.  The  causes  of  disorder  were 
still  too  strong  to  be  overcome,  and  the  effort  to  estab- 
lish governments  of  the  old  Roman  or  of  the  modern  type 
was  premature.  But  Charlemagne's  attempt  was  a  strong 
reinforcement  of  the  better  forces.  It  created  for  a  mo- 
ment security  and  a  real  union.  It  revived  the  influence 
of  Rome.  As  men  looked  back  upon  it  from  a  later  time, 
it  became  a  new  golden  age.  From  the  time  of  Charle- 
magne progress  was  still  slow,  but  Europe  assumed  a  more 
settled  character  and  never  quite  fell  back  into  the  ear- 
lier confusion. 

The  most  prominent  general  feature  of  political  civili- 
zation characteristic  of  modern  times  as  compared  with 
ancient,  is  the  existence  of  independent  nations,  constitut- 
ing a  virtual  federation  in  the  place  of  one  great  empire. 


SUMMARY  437 

The  creation  of  these  nations  was  the  work  of  the  last 
half  of  the  middle  ages,  but  in  the  breaking  up  of  Charle- 
magne's empire  they  made  their  first  appearance.  In 
other  words,  the  failure  of  the  attempt  to  secure  settled 
political  order  by  a  revival  of  the  on6  great  empire  plan, 
was  accompanied  with  an  attempt  to  secure  it  by  the 
modern  system  of  national  governments.  The  West 
Franks  and  the  Eastern  German  tribes  fell  apart,  and  set 
up  governments  of  their  own,  distinguished  both  from 
each  other  and  from  the  Carolingian.  England  emerged 
from  the  age  of  tribal  kingdoms,  and  began  a  national 
life  under  the  lead  of  the  West  Saxons.  But  these  prom- 
ises of  national  organizations  really  able  to  govern  were 
not  immediately  fulfilled.  There  were  as  yet,  even  within 
these  narrower  geographical  limits,  too  few  of  the  ele- 
ments of  a  common  life  from  which  states  draw  their  sup- 
port to  render  these  attempts  successful.  In  England  the 
Danish  invasions  threw  the  nation  back  into  something 
like  the  conditions  of  the  first  age  of  conquest.  In  Ger- 
many the  national  government  was  the  most  promising 
of  any  until  the  Norman  dynasty  gained  possession  of 
England,  but  even  in  Germany  it  was  weakened  by  strong 
tribal  differences,  which  were  not  entirely  overcome  when 
it  entered  upon  the  long  conflict  with  the  papacy,  entailed 
upon  it  by  the  Holy  Roman  Empire.  In  France  the  feu- 
dal system  had  its  origin,  and  it  had  usurped  the  powers 
of  the  general  government,  even  before  the  fall  of  the 
Carolingian  family.  The  feudal  king  whom  it  set  on  the 
throne  in  the  place  of  the  old  dynasty  had  only  a  name  to 
reign,  and  the  same  result  happened  wherever  in  Europe 
the  feudal  system  became  powerful.  Yet  for  France  and 
for  all  Europe  the  feudal  system  was  of  the  greatest  service 
in  an  age  when  anarchy  could  not  be  entirely  repressed, 
because  it  carefully  preserved  the  form  and  theory  of  a 
general  government,  while  it  allowed  local  independence 
the  freest  hand. 


438  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

The  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries  were  the  age  of  ex- 
treme disintegration,  when  the  local  and  the  narrow  pre- 
vailed universally.  The  papacy  shared  in  the  decline  of 
all  general  power.  Even  the  revival  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire by  the  Saxon  kings  of  Germany,  which  looks  like  a 
return  to  unity  and  to  broader  ideas,  was  the  revival  of 
a  title  and  a  theory,  hardly  of  a  reaUty.  But  the  idea  of 
the  universal  supremacy  of  the  pope  was  aiready  too 
thoroughly  worked  out  to  remain  long  in  abeyance.  The 
reform  led  by  the  monastery  of  Cluny  revived  the  old 
theories  with  greater  precision  and  a  clearer  consciousness. 
It  created  also  Hildebrand,  the  practical  statesman,  who 
attempted  to  carry  out  the  theories  by  raising  the  papacy 
above  all  states.  Meanwhile  the  strength  of  the  emperor 
had  greatly  increased  under  the  Franconian  family,  and 
immediately  the  two  great  theoretical  institutions  which 
the  medieval  mind  had  constructed  upon  the  Roman 
foundation  came  into  conflict.  It  was  a  conflict  between 
medieval  ideas,  fought  with  medieval  weapons,  and  it 
ceased  only  when  the  medieval  in  every  direction  was  be- 
beginning  to  give  place  to  the  modern.  Its  net  result 
for  the  history  of  civilization  was  that  it  prevented  the 
reahzation  in  facts  of  either  theory — the  world  pohtical 
empire  or  the  world  ecclesiastical  empire. 

At  the  moment  when  this  strife  was  at  its  height  the 
turning-point  of  the  middle  ages  was  reached.  Europe 
was  roused  from  its  lethargy  by  a  high  purpose,  and 
stimulated  in  the  crusades  to  an  activity  which  never 
afterwards  decHned.  Already  here  and  there  new  influ- 
ences had  begun  to  work,  in  commerce  and  in  a  desire 
for  learning  especially.  Now  all  classes  were  stirred  by 
the  general  enthusiasm.  The  new  impulse  received  be- 
gan to  show  itself  in  every  direction.  The  course  of  civ- 
ihzation  turned  away  from  the  dark  ages  towards  modern 
times. 

Commerce  was  the  first  to  feel  the  new  forces,  because 


SUMMARY  439 

the  most  directly  touched  by  the  crusades.  Ships  were 
multipHed;  new  articles  of  commerce  brought  into  use; 
new  routes  opened;  geographical  knowledge  increased; 
villages  were  transformed  into  cities;  money  came  into 
more  general  use;  wealth  was  accumulated,  and  with 
wealth  power  and  influence  in  a  new  class,  the  Third 
Estate.  In  lands  the  most  favored,  serfdom  disappeared, 
and  the  agricultural  laborer  shared  to  some  extent  in  the 
general  improvement.  These  results  of  increasing  com- 
merce acted  directly  upon  the  political  development  of 
Europe.  The  commercial  classes  demanded  security  and 
order.  They  stood  ready  to  aid  the  state  in  repressing 
feudal  violence.  They  demanded  a  uniform  law,  which 
they  found  in  the  Justinian  code,  and  by  their  use  of  it, 
and  by  their  influence  in  the  governments  which  were 
forming,  they  secured  its  prevalence  over  the  native  law, 
thus  strongly  reinforcing  the  tendency  to  centrahzation 
naturally  involved  in  the  fall  of  feudalism.  Finally,  the 
Third  Estate  made  its  way  into  the  government,  as  a  class 
beside  the  other  classes,  and  obtained  an  influence  upon 
public  affairs  in  the  Diets  and  Parliaments  and  Estates 
General  of  the  thirteenth  century — an  influence  which  it 
never  discovered  how  to  use. 

PoHtically  the  nations  appeared  immediately  upon  the 
crusades.  Germany  and  Italy  were  defrauded  of  the 
unity  which  their  national  life  would  have  justified  and 
broken  into  contending  fractions  by  the  visionary  Roman 
Empire,  which  the  Ottos  had  revived.  In  Spain  the  slow 
recovery  of  the  peninsula  from  the  Mohammedans  made 
the  united  monarchy  possible  only  at  the  end  of  the 
fifteenth  century.  But  France  and  England  reached  con- 
trasting results  of  the  greatest  interest.  In  France  the 
predominant  fact  at  the  outset  was  the  feudal  system. 
The  construction  of  a  political  unity  answering  to  a  na- 
tional life  was  a  process  of  breaking  down  feudal  barriers 
and  absorbing  feudal  principalities.     In  this  process  the 


440  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

only  institution  which  represented  a  unity  above  the 
feudal  divisions,  the  monarchy,  naturally  took  the  lead. 
Every  element  of  power  lost  by  feudalism  was  added  to 
the  king's  authority.  As  soon  as  the  geographical  con- 
struction was  fairly  under  way  the  institutional  began. 
National  administrative,  legislative,  and  judicial  systems 
were  got  into  operation.  A  national  taxation  and  a  na- 
tional army  were  formed.  As  a  result  of  the  line  of  de- 
velopment which  it  had  been  obliged  to  follow,  the  French 
nation  came  into  existence  with  a  closely  centralized 
political  life,  directed  by  an  absolute  king.  In  England 
the  predominant  fact  at  the  beginning  was  the  uncon- 
trolled power  of  the  sovereign.  The  English  barons  were 
not  feudal  princes.  They  were  so  situated  that  they 
could  not  hope  to  become  princes.  In  striving  to  increas'e 
their  own  power  at  the  expense  of  the  king  they  had 
recourse  to  the  only  things  of  which  they  could  know  any- 
thing— older  institutions,  which  limited  the  king's  action 
or  offered  protection  against  his  anger.  Their  necessary 
alliance  with  the  other  classes  in  the  nation  gave  still  more 
of  a  popular  character  to  the  government  and  made  it  pos- 
sible for  the  lower  house  of  Parliament  to  be  formed  upon 
a  really  representative  principle  and  to  obtain  increasing 
power  in  pubhc  affairs.  The  political  life  of  the  English 
nation  expressed  itself  in  a  limited  monarchy,  with  defi- 
nitely formed  institutions  of  public  and  private  liberty. 
Politically  modern  history  opens  with  the  rise  of  conflict- 
ing interests  between  the  newly  formed  states  in  attempts 
at  expansion  beyond  their  original  boundaries — with  the 
beginning  of  diplomacy  and  of  international  pohtics. 

Intellectually  the  mind  of  Europe  was  wakened  to  an 
intense  desire  for  learning  before  it  knew  where  to  find 
the  materials  of  knowledge.  The  result  was  the  forma- 
tion of  a  great  system  of  speculative  learning,  scholasti- 
cism, which  seemed  to  its  adherents  so  vitally  important 
that  it  became  a  serious  obstacle  to  the  advance  of  real 


SUMMARY  441 

learning.  With  the  fourteenth  century  the  true  way 
was  found.  Led  perhaps  by  the  reawakening  of  a  gen- 
uine Hterary  feeUng,  by  an  admiration  for  the  writings 
of  the  ancients  and  a  sense  of  the  unity  of  the  past  with 
the  present,  the  first  humanists  sought  eagerly  for  all 
the  remains  of  classical  civilization.  Greek,  which  the 
middle  ages  had  never  known,  was  recovered,  as  well 
as  a  better  knowledge  of  Latin.  The  spirit  of  criticism 
was  quickly  awakened.  True  scientific  work  was  begun. 
Careful  editions  of  literary  and  historical  works  were 
prepared.  A  more  accurate  knowledge  of  the  past  was 
gained.  Old  beliefs  were  brought  to  the  test  of  facts, 
and  time-honored  myths  destroyed  on  all  sides.  The 
right  of  investigation  and  of  individual  judgment  was 
established.  In  physical  science  Copernicus  was  pro- 
vided with  the  material  and  the  method  which  led  to  the 
first  great  advance  in  the  understanding  of  nature.  The 
invention  of  printing  popularized  the  new  learning  and 
gave  it  better  weapons.  The  discovery  of  America,  and 
all  the  work  of  the  century  together,  broadened  and  lib- 
eralized men's  minds,  and  opened  a  future  full  of  prom- 
ise. With  this  the  middle  ages  closed  in  the  intellectual 
world  and  modern  history  began. 

In  the  ecclesiastical  world  less  progress  had  been  made 
by  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  because  the 
resisting  power  had  been  greater.  The  nations  as  they 
arose  had  successfully  opposed  the  political  interference 
of  the  papacy  in  their,  domestic  affairs.  England,  France, 
and  Germany  in  succession  had  proclaimed  their  inde- 
pendence. But  the  attempt,  at  the  Council  of  Constance, 
to  reconstruct  the  government  of  the  church  upon  the 
model  of  the  ideas  and  institutions  which  had  grown  up 
in  the  political  progress  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
centuries  had  failed  completely.  The  same  result  had 
followed  the  several  attempts  to  introduce  religious  or 
ecclesiastical  reform,  either  local  or  general,  which  had 


442  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

been  made  before  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
At  that  date  the  modern  spirit  had,  in  the  main,  posses- 
sion of  all  the  world  except  the  ecclesiastical  portion  of  it. 
But  if  the  modern  spirit  had  been  kept  under  in  these 
matters  it  had  not  been  destroyed,  and  when  it  found  its 
leader  in  Luther  the  suddenness  of  the  revolution  showed 
how  thorough  had  been  the  preparation  for  it.  The 
Reformation  sought  as  its  conscious  object  a  return  to  a 
more  primitive  Christianity  in  practice  and  belief,  but  it 
accomplished  more  than  this.  It  created  a  general  at- 
mosphere of  intellectual  independence  and  freedom  wher- 
ever it  prevailed  which,  if  not  always  perfectly  realized, 
has  been,  nevertheless,  one  of  the  most  essential  condi- 
tions of  modern  progress. 

With  the  Reformation  the  history  of  the  middle  ages 
was  closed  for  every  department  of  civilization.  This  is 
the  same  as  to  say  that  for  every  department  of  civili- 
zation the  work  of  waiting,  of  preparation,  was  now  over, 
and  that  an  age  of  more  rapid  progress,  basing  itself  upon 
the  results  of  the  world's  first  age  of  similar  progress,  now 
succeeded  an  age  of  relatively  slow  advance.  The  age 
which  lay  between  had  had  its  necessary  work  to  do.  To 
the  results  of  ancient  civilization,  it  had  adde^  new  ideas 
and  institutions  from  other  sources,  and,  even  more  im- 
portant, it  had  brought  in  a  new  race  and  trained  it  to 
understand  and  to  build  upon  the  best  productions  of  the 
ancient  world.  The  reason  why  the  advance  of  the  last 
four  centuries  has  been  so  marvellous,  comparatively 
speaking,  is  because  the  middle  ages  moulded  into  a  perfed" 
unity  a  living  and  organic  world  civilization,  the  best  coiv 
tributions  of  Greek  and  Roman,  Christian  and  German. 

In  sum  total  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century 
shows  these  advances  to  have  been  made  over  the  begin- 
ning of  the  fifth.  A  new  race  was  on  the  field  as  the  crea- 
tive agent  in  history — the  Teutonic — organized  now  in  a 


SUMMARY  443 

number  of  independent  nations,  and  not  in  one  great 
empire,  but  forming  an  equally  or  even  more  close  unity 
in  civilization  than  the  old  empire,  in  which  the  work  of 
each  nation  is  immediately  the  common  property  of  all. 
This  unity  was  now  so  thoroughly  established,  so  much  a 
part  of  the  world's  daily  habit  of  thought  and  action,  that 
the  idea  of  the  Roman  Empire,  upon  which  it  had  been 
originally  based,  had  entirely  disappeared,  and  if  any  idea 
of  the  special  source  of  this  unity  had  taken  its  place,  it 
was  that  of  the  Christian  faith  as  its  common  character- 
istic and  foundation— Christendom.  The  nations  organ- 
ized within  this  unity  were  no  longer  city  states,  but  in 
them  all  parts  of  the  land  were  equally  organic  factors 
in  the  composition  of  the  nation.  Their  governments 
presented,  with  local  variations,  two  general  types,  one 
of  which,  at  least,  was  a  decided  advance  upon  any  of 
the  ancient  world.  One  was  a  closely  centralized  mon- 
archy, in  which  the  functions  of  government,  recovered 
from  the  smaller  powers — the  feudal  lords — which  had 
usurped  them  in  a  time  of  political  confusion,  were  vested 
in  an  uncontrolled  sovereign.  The  other  was  also  in 
form  a  monarchy,  but  it  was  a  monarchy  which  allowed 
full  local^self-government  in  the  subdi\asions  of  the  state 
without  loss  of  eflSciency,  that  is,  it  was  a  strong  national 
government,  without  close  centralization.  The  functions 
of  the  general  government,  exercised  at  first  by  the  king, 
were  passing  more  and  more  under  the  control  of  the 
people  by  means  of  a  series  of  institutional  checks  upon 
the  royal  power  which  were  not  known  to  the  ancient 
world.  This  control  was  exercised  by  representatives  of 
the  people,  under  a  representative  system,  real  though 
incomplete,  which  with  the  limited  monarchy  was  the 
most  valuable  contribution  which  this  race  had  yet  made 
to  practical  politics.  The  liberty  of  the  individual  was 
protected  by  institutions  which  were  also  new.  In  other 
words,  this  type  of  government  was  that  of  a  free  state 


444  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

well  under  way,  its  institutions  of  liberty  already  so  defi- 
nitely shaped  as  to  be  capable  of  transmission  through 
long  ages,  and  of  adaptation  to  other  races  and  other  en- 
vironments. 

In  economic  civilization,  as  compared  with  the  fifth 
century  the  commerce  of  the  sixteenth  was  no  longer 
confined  to  the  Mediterranean,  but  the  whole  world  was 
open  to  it,  and  an  age  of  great  colonies  was  about  to  begin. 
The  slavery  of  Europeans  had  disappeared  from  the  Chris- 
tian states,  and  serfdom,  which  in  the  fifth  century  was 
just  beginning  to  take  the  place  of  slavery,  had  also  been 
left  behind  by  a  few  of  the  more  advanced  nations.  Labor 
had  become  more  honorable  than  in  ancient  times.  The 
class  of  free  laborers  had  arisen,  with  but  little  influence 
as  yet,  but  revealing  clearly  the  possession  of  that  power 
in  its  infancy,  which  they  were  to  exercise  in  the  future. 

Intellectually,  the  world  had  come  into  possession,  at 
the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  of  the  printing- 
press  and  a  greatly  extended  geographical  knowledge. 
These  in  themselves  constituted  a  revolution,  but  in 
hardly  any  other  particular  was  there  an  advance  over  the 
fifth  century,  though  the  attitude  of  mind  towards  life 
and  all  intellectual  problems  was  a  great  advance  upon  the 
medieval.  The  active  mind  of  the  middle  ages  had  been 
employed  in  the  construction  of  great  philosophical  and 
theological  systems,  valuable  for  their  own  purposes  but 
adding  little  to  real  knowledge.  The  great  effort  of  the 
last  age,  now  just  successful,  had  been  to  learn  what  the 
ancients  had  known,  to  regain  a  more  just  estimate  of 
man  and  of  his  powers,  to  begin  the  formulation  of  the 
great  problems  demanding  to  be  solved,  and  to  restore 
more  productive  methods  of  scientific  work.  The  first 
great  discovery  in  the  field  of  physical  science  was  just 
on  the  eve  of  announcement. 

In  art  much  which  the  fifth  century  possessed  had 
been  lost  never  to  be  recovered,  but  much  also  had  been 


SUMMARY  445 

added  to  the  world's^  store — the  Divine  Comedy  and 
Chaucer,  the  cathedrals  of  Europe  and  the  earlier  works 
of  Renaissance  art. 

Religiously,  thej)pening  of  the  sixteenth  century^jpre- 
sented,  in  external  appearance  at  least,  no  advance  upon 
the  fifth.  Those  modifications  of  the  primitive  and  spir- 
itual Christianity  which  had  been  introduced  at  the 
earlier  date,  because  of  the  difficulty  of  holding  true  to 
the  higher  life  in  a  declining  age,  which  had  perhaps 
enabled  the  Christian  organization  to  meet  the  perils  of 
the  age  of  conquest  with  greater  safety,  and  to  become  a 
more  effective  teacher  of  barbarous  races,  through  which, 
Ebwever,  the  gifted  soul  had  always  been  able  to  see  the 
light— these  modifications  or  corruptions  still  remained 
as  the  popular  Christianity,  hardened  into  a  vast,  and  in- 
deed splendid,  system  of  ceremonies  and  doctrinal  beliefs. 
In  place  of  the  formative  constitution  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury now  appeared  a  most  highly  organized  absolutism,  a 
great  ecclesiastical  empire,  with  perfected  machinery  of 
government  and  a  growing  system  of  law.  But  if  at  the 
opening  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  church  was  still  in 
appearance  medieval,  it  was  just  on  the  verge  of  the  revo- 
lution which  was  to  make  it  more  modern,  and  to  mark 
the  first  long  step  in  advance  towards  a  truer  understand- 
ing of  Christianity. 

However  long  this  catalogue  may  be  of  those  things  in 
which  the  first  years  of  the  sixteenth  century  surpassed 
those  of  the  fifth,  the  great  change  was  in  the  new  race, 
the  new  spirit,  which  now  entered  into  the  possession  of 
the  results  of  the  past.  New  impulses  were  felt  by  every 
man,  and  the  promise  of  a  wider  future.  New  forces  were 
opening  the  way  in  every  direction.  Humanity  was  en- 
tering upon  another  great  era  of  the  rapid  conquest  of 
nature  and  of  truth. 


INDEX 


Abelard,  268. 

Adolf  of  Nassau,  Emperor,  357. 

Agriculture,  feudal  organization  of, 
192/. 

Alaric,  29;  68;  123  /. 

Albigenses,  268;  313;  407/. 

Alcuin,  160;  358. 

Alexander  III,  Pope,  248. 

Alexius  Comnenus,  257  /. 

Alfred  the  Great,  182. 

Allodial  land,  212/. 

Ambrose  of  Milan,  116. 

America,  discovery  of,  284;  355;  379  X 

Andorra,  Republic  of,  286,  noie. 

Anglo-Saxon  race,  the  institution-mak- 
ing power,  22;  37,  nole;  100,  note  2; 
their  laws,  33;  35;  their  invasion  of 
England,  70  /.;  elective  monarchy, 
96  /.;  their  self-developing  common 
law,  99  /.;  their  future  political  in- 
fluence, loi;  137;  192,  nole;  German 
denial  of  indebtedness  to,  loi,  nole; 
and  a  world  state,  188,  nole;  and 
monasticism,  260,  note ;  their  law  of 
treason,  348/. 

Arabs,  the,  their  attack  on  Gaul,  139; 
148;  205;  their  conquests,  148;  255  Jf.; 
Charlemagne,  154;  their  work  for 
civilization,  255  jf.;  359. 

Arianism,  125;  140/.;  227. 

Aristotle,  359;  360,  nole  ;  368;  377;  419; 
his  Politics,  20. 

Army,  standing,  beginning  of  modem, 

321;  329- 

Amulf,  King  of  Germany,  172  /. 

Ascetic  motive,  power  in  middle  ages, 
259;  260^. 

Asceticism.    See  Monasticism. 

Assizes  de  Jerusalem,  217  /. 

Athaulf,  King  of  the  Visigoths,  68. 

Athenians,  inferior  to  Romans  in  polit- 
ical skill,  28,  note. 

Attila,  70;  72. 


Augustine,  St.,  36;  53,  nole;  56,  note; 
his  theology,  117;  his  philosophy  of 
history,  118,  nole;  his  City  oj  God,  118, 
nole;  224;  his  use  of  Greek,  358;  in- 
fluence on  Luther,  419. 

Avignon,  the  papacy  at,  388  f. 

"Babylonian  captivity,"  the,  390. 

Bacon,  Lord,  on  Scholasticism,  360,  note. 

Bacon,  Roger,  268;  361;  379 

Bailli,  the,  315;  317;  324. 

Basel,  Council  of,  399/. 

Beaumanoir,  218. 

Belisarius,  73. 

Benedict  XIII,  396;  397. 

Benedict,  St.,  the  "rule"  of,  132,  note. 

"Benefice,"  the,  196;  197,  nole;  206; 
215. 

Bible,  critical  study  of,  373,  note;  in 
the  early  reformation  movements, 
411;  influence  of  the  Reformation  on 
the  study  of,  431.  See  New  Testa- 
ment. 

Blackstone's  Commentaries,  description 
of  feudalism  in,  215. 

Blanche  of  Castile,  Queen  of  France, 
312. 

Boniface  VIII,  324,  note;  3&<iff.;  405. 

Boniface,  St.,  148/.;  228. 

"Boss,"  the  American  party,  in  Italian 
cities,  353  /.  and  note. 

Bourgeoisie,  villes  de,  288;  290. 

Bourges,  Synod  of,  400. 

Bouvines,  battle  of,  311. 

Britain,  abandoned  by  the  Romans,  70; 
occupied  by  the  Saxons,  70/. 

Bruges,  in  medieval  commerce,  280. 

Brunner,  H.,  on  the  circuit  justices  of 
England,  159,  note  2;  on  the  feudal 
system,  202,  note;  203,  note;  205,  nole. 

Burgundians,  the,  67;  68;  139;  141. 

Byzantine  civilization,  influence  of,  oa 
the  West,  86,  noU. 


447 


448 


INDEX 


Canon  law,  influence  of  Roman  law 
upon,  36. 

Capetian  dynasty,  beginning  of,  i78Jf.; 
advantage  over  Carolingians,  210; 
efforts  of,  to  form  modern  France, 
306  f.;  310;  complete  France  geo- 
graphically,  330. 

Carollngian  family,  the,  its  rise,  145 
f.;  decline  of,  167/.;  171;  end  of,  in 
Germany,  173;  in  France,  178;  Ca- 
petian advantage  over,  210. 

Celestin  V,  384. 

Celibacy  of  the  clergy,  the,  23g. 

Cellini,  37g. 

Champagne,  Count  of,  complex  feudal 
territories  of,  218/. 

Charlemagne,  151  f.;  436;  his  states- 
manship, 152;  conquests,  153;  in- 
stitutional creations,  156  ff.;  legisla- 
tion, isg /.;  schools,  160/.;  358;  be- 
comes Emperor  of  Rome,  104;  161 /.; 
results  of  his  reign,  165  Jf.;  fall  of  his 
empire,  167  /.;  causes  of  its  fall;  168 
ff.;  his  influence  on  feudalism,  207; 
his  relation  to  the  church,  229  /. 

Charles  the  Fat,  167;  179. 

Charles  IV,  Emperor,  351. 

Charles  V,  Emperor,  415. 

Charles  V,  France,  327/. 

Charles  VI,  France,  328. 

Charles  VII,  France,  328/, 

Charles  VIII,  France,  330. 

Charles  Martel,  147  Jf.;  205;  206. 

Chartres,  the  school  of,  359. 

Cherokee,  progress  of,  compared  witl] 
that  of  the  Franks,  9,  note  i. 

Chivalry,  origin  of,   271;  influence 
272  /.;  ethics  of,  272  /. 

Christianity,  spread  of,  aided  by 
Roman  unity,  31;  influence  of, 
Roman  law,  32;  hinderances  to  spread 
of,  40  ff.;  aids  to  spread  of,  42  | 
attitude  of  Roman  government  to- 
ward, 45  _ff.;  attitude  of,  toward  the 
state,  47,  note;  60;  contributions  of, 
to  civilization,  50  jff.;  and  church 
government,  50;  108  J".;  and  theology, 
50;  109;  religious  contributions,  51 
ff.;  ethical  contributions,  54  _ff.;  in- 
fluence of,  on  relation  of  individual 
to  the  state,  60;  on  idea  of  equality, 
60;  on  abolition  of  slavery,  61,  note; 
on  advancement  of  woman,  61,  note; 
on  separation  of  church  and  state,  61 


/.;  introduced  new  energy,  63 ;  in  the 
Renaissance  age,  374;  377/. 

Church,  the,  influence  of  Roman  law 
upon,  36;  Christianity  and,  50;  109; 
separation  of  state  and,  62;  influ- 
ence on  the  Germans,  104;  forma- 
tion of  Roman  Catholic,  in  ff.;  aids 
in  formatioujof  the  modern  nations, 
174;  181  /.,• /attempts  to  reconstruct 
the  constitiyion  of,  401  /.;  conditiorj 
of,  at  begir/iing  of  sixteenth  century, 
406/. 

Cities,  free,/ rise  of,  in  Italy,  247  /.; 
295  /.;  meir  struggle  with  the  em- 
perors, /47  Jf.;  29s  /.;  rise  of,  after 
the  cr/sades,  285  /.;  influence  of 
Roma»  institutions  on,  285,  note; 
aidedioy  feudal  forms,  286;  in  France, 
.;  in  Germany,  296  /.;  the  city 
leases,  297. 

Civil/ation,  medieval,  general  char- 
a(xer  of,  6  Jf.;  433;  reasons  for  de- 
cline of,  10  /.,•  why  slow  advance  in, 
p  /.,•  lines  of  development  after  the 
busades,  273;  summary  of,  433  ff.; 
f advances  in,  442  ff. 
fivilization,  modern,  sources  of,  15  ff.; 
contributions  to,  by  Greece,  16  ^.; 
by  Rome,  20  Jf.;  by  Christianity, 
50  Jf.;  by  the  Germans,  88  Jf.;  why 
comparatively  productive,  442. 

Claudius,  the  Emperor,  on  Roman 
political  policy,  27/. 

Clement  V,  388. 

Clericis  laicos,  the  bull,  385;  386,  note; 
387. 

Clovis,  29;  137/. 

Cluny,  reform  movement  of,  239  ff. 

Colet,  John,  371  /.;  376. 

Coloni,  the,  66.     See  Serfdom. 

Columbus,  290;  379  #.;  a  product  of  the 
Renaissance,  380/. 

Comitatus,  the,  loi  /.;  202  /. 

"Commendation,"  the  practice  of, 
198/. 

Commerce,  eflect  of  the  crusades  upon, 
268  /.;  277;  438  /.,•  influence  of,  in 
later  middle  ages,  275;  decline  of 
Roman,  275;  in  early  middle  ages, 
276;  the  regions  and  articles  of  me- 
dieval, 277  Jf.;  influence  of  Turks 
upon,  278;  283;  character  of  later 
medieval,  283;  influence  on  rise  of 
cities,  28s;    on  feudalism,  291^.;  oa 


INDEX 


449 


rise  of  national  governments,  202  f.; 
on  the  rise  of  national  law,  293^./  on 
the  Third  Estate,  299  f. 
Commons,  the,  formation  of,  in  En- 
gland, 300;  the  House  of,  composi- 
tion of,  343;  growth  of  the  power  of, 

339;  344  f- 

Commune,  the,  286  J". 

Constance,  Council  of,  397^.;  399;  410. 

Constance,  treaty  of,  249. 

Constantine,  8;  his  adoption  of  Chris- 
tianity, 48  /.;  and  constitutional 
changes  of  Diocletian,  49;  eflfect  of 
his  adoption  of  Christianity,  112. 

'"Constantine,  Donation  of,"  230  /.; 
242;  369. 

Constantinople,  s;  67;  369. 

Copernicus,  376;  380. 

Corpus  juris  civilis,  33  /.  See  Roman 
Law. 

Councils,  church,  beginning  of,  116;  re- 
lation of,  to  the  papacy,  387  f.;  396 
f.;  attempt  to  reconstruct  the  con- 
stitution by  means  of,  401;  failure  of 
the  attempt,  402. 

Courts,  formation  of  national  in  France, 
316  f.;  in  England,  320,  note.  See 
Jurisdiction,  "Justice." 

Cn-sades,  the,  254  ff.;  the  first,  257  ff.; 
263;  causes  of,  258  ff.;  a  common 
European  movement,  265;  results  of, 
266  J[.;  277;  the  end  of,  261;  264;  381. 

Curia  regis,  the,  316/.;  322;  323^. 

Dahn,  Felix,  9,  note;  202,  note. 

Dante,  on  the  origin  of  the  Capetians, 
178,  note;  his  relation  to  the  Renais- 
sance, 365  /. 

Declaration  of  Independence,  the  Amer- 
ican, 35,  note  2;  97,  note. 

"Decretals,  the  false,"  231  /. 

"Digest,"  the,  of  Justinian,  33;  on  the 
precarium,  197,  note. 

Diocletian,  persecution  of  Christianity 
by,  47;  49;  changes  in  Roman  consti- 
tution by,  their  importance,  49. 

Diplomacy,  the  beginnings  of,  355. 

Dominicans,  the,  408. 

Economic  forces,  in  origin  of  feudalism, 

192;  relation  to  general  progress,  274. 

Edward  I,  England,  324,  tiote;  341;  384 

/.;  387. 
Edward  II,  England,  97;  341;  345. 


Edward  III,  England,  342;  344;  348; 
390;  391. 

Eleanor  of  Aquitaine,  309. 

Emancipation  of  serfs,  302  ff. 

England,  origin  of  representative  sys- 
tem in,  94;  elective  monarchy  in,  96 
/.,■  the  common  law  of,  98  f.;  be- 
ginning of  modern,  182  f.;  feudal- 
ism in,  183;  334  #.;  character  of  po- 
litical progress  in,  186/.;  the  city  in, 
298/.;  serfdom  in,  303;  formation  of 
modern,  332  f.;  440;  effect  of  Nor- 
man conquest  on,  332  ff.;  institu- 
tional development  of,  335  ff.;  con- 
stitution of,  at  the  end  of  the  middle 
ages,  338  /.;  effect  of  French  pos- 
sessions on,  342,  note;  civil  liberty 
in,  in  1485,  346;  conflict  with  the 
papacy,  384;  387;  390;  medieval 
heresies  in,  409,  note  2. 

Enqueteur,  the,  316. 

Episcopate,  origin  cf,  in  the  church,  107. 

Erasmus,  early  life,  371;  in  England, 
371;  influence  of  Colet  on,  371  and 
note;  his  purposes,  372  /.;  his  New 
Testament,  373  /.;  his  answer  to 
objections,  373,  note;  his  relation  to 
the  Reformation,  374  /.;  leads  the 
attack  on  the  old  system,  377;  his 
service  to  civilization,  414. 

Estates  General,  the,  rise  of,  319;  322 
ff.;  386/./  attempt  of,  to  form  a  con- 
stitution, 326  /.;  set  aside  by  the 
king,  328. 

Ethics,  religion  and,  52  /.;  contribu- 
tions of  Christianity  to,  54  ff.;  of 
chivalry,  272  /.;  of  the  Renaissance 
age,  378. 

Eugenius  IV,  400. 

Explorations,  the  age  01,  as  resulting 
from  the  crusades,  269;  in  the  6f- 
teenth  century,  283;  379^. 

Federal  government,  origin  of,  20,  note; 
possibility  of,  in  the  constitution  of 
the  church,  403. 

Ferdinand,  Spain,  354/./  415. 

Feudal  system,  the,  Fustel  de  Cou- 
langes  on,  136,  note;  conditions  which 
gave  rise  to,  170/.,  in  Germany,  173; 
223,  note;  in  England,  183  /.;  334 
ff.;  formation  of,  189  ff.;  extra-Eu- 
ropean, 191 ;  two  distinct  sides  to, 
191  /.;    its  influence  on  civiUzation, 


45° 


INDEX 


220  ff.;  448;  effect  of  the  crusades 
upon,  269;  effect  of  commerce  upon, 
275;  291  f.;  economic  foundation  of, 
291;  in  France,  306;  fall  of,  330. 

Fief,  the,  196;  218  /.    See  Benefice. 

Florence,  government  of,  296;  353  /. 

France,  beginning  of  modern,  173  f.; 
439  /•>■  character  of  political  progress 
in,  186;  free  cities  in,  286  f.;  forma- 
tion of  modern,  305  f.;  institutional 
development  of,  315  f-!  conflict  with 
the  papacy,  323;  384  #.;  not  wholly 
united,  330,  note;  national  church 
of,  400  /. 

Franciscans,  the,  408. 

Franciscans,  the  "spiritual,"  392. 

Frankfort,  the  declaration  of,  390  /. 

Franks,  the,  85;  their  alliance  with  the 
papacy,  126;  141;  150;  227  /.,•  impor- 
tance of  their  history,  135;  begin- 
ning of  their  conquests,  137;  retain 
German  elements,  139;  unite  Roman 
and  German,  139;  and  early  feudal- 
ism, 200  /.;  their  relation  to  the 
growth  of  the  feudal  system,  203  /.; 
their  institutions  in  England,  332. 

Fredegonda,  Queen,  144,  note. 

Frederick  I,  Barbarossa,  Emperor,  244 
f.;  264. 

Frederick  I,  Brandenburg,  352. 

Frederick  II,  Emperor,  251  /.;  264;  383. 

Free  thought,  the  Reformation  and,  420 
and  note;  429  and  note;  431. 

Freeman,  E.  A.,  on  the  rapid  spread  of 
Christianity,  41. 

Fustel  de  Coulanges,  his  historical  work, 
136,  note;  371,  note. 

Gallican  church,  hberties  of  the,  401, 
note. 

Gaul,  successive  changes  in  different 
ages,  10,  note;  Romanization  of,  24; 
occupied  by  the  Germans,  67  /. 

Gerbert  of  Rheims,  233  /.;  268;  359. 

Germans,  early,  compared  with  North 
American  Indians,  9;  their  Romaniza- 
tion, 13;  28. 

Germans,  in  Roman  Empire  before  the 
invasion,  25;  67;  their  conquest  of 
Rome  held  back,  29;  their  contribu- 
tions to  civilization,  89  f.;  indebted- 
ness of  modern,  to  Anglo-Saxon  in- 
stitutions, loi  and  note.  See  Teutonic 
race. 


Germany,  formation  of  modem,  172 
f.;  character  of  poUtical  progress  in> 
185/.;  later  feudal  history  of,  224^.; 
23s;  249  /.;  later  medieval  history, 
349  f-i  conflict  with  the  papacy, 
390  /.;  national  church  of,  400  /. 

Gerson,  John,  and  the  councils,  395; 
and  Luther,  418 

Gnosticism,  in. 

Goths.     See  Ostrogoths,  Visigoths. 

Graf,  the,  156/. 

Greece,  contributions  of,  to  civilization, 
16  jf.,-  not  political,  19/. 

Greek  language,  knowledge  of,  in  mid- 
dle ages,  10;  358;  a  universal  lan- 
guage in  the  East,  26,  note  i;  revived 
study  of,  369. 

Greek  philosophy,  a  permanent  ele- 
ment of  civilization,  17;  adopted  by 
the  Romans,  2 1 ;  influence  on  Romaa 
law,  32;  aid  to  spread  of  Christian- 
ity, 44;  influence  on  Christian  the- 
ology, 112;  in  scholasticism,  360  /. 

Greeks,  not  a  political  race,  19;  20,  note 
2;  contrast  with  Romans,  in  power  of 
assimilation,  27  ff.;  their  influence  on 
the  Arabs,  256. 

Gregory  I,  the  Great,  116;  122;  123; 
226/.;  227. 

Gregory  VII,  238/.,-  242;  263;  383;  405. 

Gregory  XI,  393. 

Gregory  XII,  396;  397;  404. 

Gregory  of  Tours,  citation  from  his 
History  of  the  Franks,  144,  note. 

Guelfs,  the,  246;  248;  250. 

Habeas  Corpus,  339. 

Hadrianople,  battle  of,  65  /. 

Hallam,  Henry,  citation  from,  on  civil 

rights,  348. 
Hanseatic  League,  the,  280;  297  /. 
Hapsburg  family,  the,  350/./  415. 
Henry  I,  England,  308. 
Henry  II,  England,  309;  310;  346. 
Henry  III,  England,  312;  340/. 
Henry  IV,  England,  342. 
Henry  VIII,  England,  345. 
Henry  I,  King  of  Germany,  17s/. 
Henry  III,  Emperor,  235  /.;  237;  238; 

245- 
Henry  IV,  Emperor,  237  ff.;  263. 
Henry  VI,  Emperor,  237;  250/. 
Henry  VII,  Emperor,  350;  351  /. 
Henry  the  Lion,  246;  248;  250. 


INDEX 


451 


Henry,  Prince,  of  Portugal,  283. 
Hildebrand.     See  Gregory  VII. 
Hohenzollern,  House  of,  352. 
Hugh  Capet,  King  of  France,   179  /.; 

307. 
Humanism.     See  Renaissance. 
Hundred   Years'   War,    the,   326;   328; 

342;  390. 
Hungarians,  invasions  of  the,  155;  i6g; 

173;  176. 
Huns,  the,  attack  the  Gothic  kingdom, 

65;  invade  Gaul  and  Italy,  70. 
Huss,  John,  410;  413;  426. 
Hutten,  Ulrich  von,  377. 

"Immunity,"  the,  208/. 

Impeachment,  beginning  of  the  practice 
of,  344  /• 

India,  medieval  commerce  with,  278  /.; 
283/. 

Indians  of  North  America,  early  Ger- 
mans compared  with,  9  and  note  i. 

Infallibility,  papal,  404;  423;  426. 

Innocent  I,  116. 

Innocent  III,  242;  251 /.;  264;  383;  405. 

Innocent  IV,  252. 

"Institutes,"  the,  of  Justinian,  33/. 

Irternational  politics,  rise  of,  355;  405. 

Investiture  strife,  239  ff. 

Isabella  of  Spain,  354. 

"Isidorian  Decretals,  pseudo,"  231/. 

Italy,  condition  in  tenth  century,  177; 
in  eleventh,  239  /.;  in  twelfth,  247; 
free  cities  in,  295  /.;  serfdom  in,  303; 
in  the  later  middle  ages,  353  /.;  con- 
ditions which  favored  the  Renais- 
sance, 364/. 

Jerusalem,  Kingdom  of,  263;  264. 

Joan  of  Arc,  328. 

John  VIII,  232. 

John  XXIII,  396;  397. 

John,  England,  310/.;  336;  390. 

Judge,  independence  of,  347  /. 

Judicial  system,  early  German,  94  /.; 
Carolingian,  156  _ff.;  formation  of,  in 
France,  316  ff.;  in  England,  320,  note. 

Julius  I.  116. 

Julius  II,  353. 

Julius  Ca;sar,  8;  29;  64;  367. 

Jurisdiclio,  208. 

Jurisdiction,  private  feudal,  193/.;  pub- 
lic in  private  hands,  194  /.;  208/. 


Jury,  the,  not  in  Magna  Carta,  337; 

except    in   its    primitive    form,    346; 

origin  of,  346  /.,-  its  importance  for 

liberty,  347;  general  verdicts  by,  347, 

note  I. 
"Justice,"  in    feudal    law,    208;    212; 

213. 
Justinian,   his  code  in  the  East,    26; 

his  codification  of  Roman  law,  a; 

his  conquests,   73;   276;   his  code  in 

Italy,  73  /.     See  Roman  Law. 

Kiersy,  capitulary  of,  170,  note. 
Konrad  I,  King  of  Germany,  175. 
Konrad  II,  Emperor,  235. 
Konrad  III,  Emperor,  264. 

Langton,  Stephen,  327. 

Language,  universal,  in  ancient  world, 
24;  25/. 

Latin  language,  knowledge  of,  in  mid- 
dle ages,  10;  358  /.;  in  the  Roman 
provinces,  24;  25  /.;  a  universal  lan- 
guage, 25  /. 

Latin  literature,  compared  with  Greek, 
21. 

Law,  a  national  system  of,  demand  of 
commerce  and  the  cities  for,  293  ff.; 
in  France,  319  /.;  330,  note;  in  En- 
gland, 320,  note. 

Law,  English  common,  99;  100,  note  i; 
320,  7iote  I. 

Law,  Roman.     See  Roman  Law. 

Learning,  revival  of.     See  Renaissance. 

Lefevre,  reformer,  415. 

Legnano,  battle  of,  248. 

Leo  I,  70;  116;  124. 

Leo  III,  161. 

Leo  IX,  237. 

Lewis  IV,  Emperor,  350;  351;  392. 

Liberia,  Republic  of,  30,  note. 

Libri  Fundorum,  the,  217;  2i8and«ofe. 

Literature,  medieval,  133;  215;  358/. 

Lombard  League,  the,  248;  297. 

Lombards,  their  conquest  of  Italy,  74; 
their  kingdom,  149;  danger  to  the 
papacy  from,  150/.;  353;  Pippin  at- 
tacks them,  ISO  /.;  incorporated  in 
Charlemagne's  empire,  155. 

Louis  VI,  France,  307  /.;  323. 

Louis  VII,  France,  264;  309. 

Louis  VIII,  France,  312;  313. 

Louis  IX,  France,  264;  312;  318;  ^2^. 


452 


INDEX 


Louis  XI,  France,  314;  320/. 

Louis  the  Pious,  Emperor,  166. 

Luther,  independent  of  earlier  move- 
ments, 384  /.;  410;  his  relation  to 
the  Reformation  movement,  416  /./ 
his  personal  characteristics,  417  Jff.; 
growth  of  his  opinions,  418  f.;  his 
humanistic  spirit,  419  /.;  but  still 
medieval,  421;  his  relation  to  the 
right  of  free  thought,  422  /.;  first 
public  act  of,  in  the  Reformation,  424; 
is  brought  into  opposition  to  the 
church,  425  /.;  his  position  logically 
complete  in  the  Leipsic  debate,  426. 
See  Protestantism,  Reformation. 

Luxemburg,  House  of,  351  /. 

Machiavelli,  354;  379. 

Magna  Carta,  325,  note;  336  f.;  341; 
the  jury  in,  337;  346. 

Mainz,  Diet  at,  adopts  provisions  of 
church  reform,  400. 

Manorial  system,  the,  193  f.;  the  court 
of,  194;  effect  of  increased  circula- 
tion of  money  upon,  291  /. 

Marcel,  Etienne,  327. 

Marco  Polo,  269. 

Marcus  Aurelius,  29;  75. 

Marsiglio  of  Padua,  392. 

Martin  V,  398  /. 

Medici  family,  the,  296;  353  /. 

Mercantile  system,  the,  rise  of,  281, 
note. 

Merovingian  family,  character  of,  144/. 

Middle  ages,  the,  boundary  dates  of, 
4  /.;  general  character  of,  6;  363  /.; 
reasons  for  decline  of  civilization  in, 
11;  why  progress  slow  during,  12  /.; 
lines  of  progress  in  latter  half  of,  274 
/.;  summary  of,  433  f.;  advances  in 
civilization  during,  433  jf. 

Milan,  government  of,  296;  354. 

Missi  dominici,  the,  157  Jf.;  166;  316. 

Mithraism,  42. 

Mohammedanism,  51;  255  J^. 

Mohammedans,  influence  on  civiliza- 
tion through  the  crusades,  267.  Euro- 
pean commerce  with,  278  /. 

Monarchy,  development  of  constitu- 
tional, 97;  effect  of  crusades  on  rise 
of  modern,  270;  of  commerce,  292 
ff.;  of  Roman  law,  319  /.;  develop- 
ment of  French  absolute,  319/.;  321 
/.;  329;  Norman  in  England,  sssi  de- 


velopment of  English  constitutional, 
335 ;  349- 

Monasticism,  origin  of,  129;  sources  of 
its  influence,  131;  its  work  for  civili- 
zation, 132  J[.;  prevalence  of  ascetic 
feeling,  260  /.;  a  spiritual  refuge  for 
some,  417. 

Money,  increased  circulation  of,  291  /.; 
effect  of,  291  /. 

Monod,  G.,  did  not  follow  Fustel  de 
Coulanges,  136,  note;  quotation  from, 
222,  note. 

Montfort,  Simon  de,  327;  341. 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  371;  374;  428. 

Nations,  beginning  of  modern,  171  ff.; 
436  /.;  formation  of  the  modern  idea 
of,  187;  influence  of  commerce  on 
the  formation  of,  292  _ff.;  final  rise  of 
modern,  305  Jf.     See  State. 

New  Testament,  critical  study  of,  369; 
372;  373.  note;  377. 

Nicholas  I,  232. 

Nicholas  II,  239;  241. 

Normans,  the,  their  conquest  of  En- 
gland, 183;  259;  332  /.;  in  southern 
Italy,  241;  259;  attacks  of,  on  the 
Eastern  Empire,  257;  in  the  first 
crusade,  263;  265. 

Northmen,  the,  155;  their  attacks  on 
Gaul,  169;  183;  on  England,  182/. 

Nuremberg,  peace  of,  415. 

Ockham,  William  of,  392. 

Odovaker,  5;  71  /. 

Ostrogoths,  submit  to  Huns,  65;  their 

kingdom  in  Italy,  72/.;  its  fall,  73. 
Otto  I,  Emperor,  165;  ijb  ff.;  233. 
Otto  II,  Emperor,  233. 
Otto  HI,  Emperor,  233  /. 
Otto  IV,  Emperor,  250;  311. 
Ottokar  II,  Bohemia,  351. 
Oxford,  provisions  of,  340  /. 
Oxford  reformers,  the,  371  ff.;  374,  note. 

Papacy,  the,  its  formation,  106  ff.; 
growth  of  the  territory  subject  to  it, 
74;  123;  151;  its  alliance  with  the 
Franks,  126;  141;  150;  227  /.;  its 
conflict  with  the  empire,  224  _^.;  438; 
its  relation  to  Italian  independence, 
295;  353;  with  the  new  nations. 
323  /•;  383  /■;  at  Avignon,  388 
ff.;  loss  of  its  international  position. 


INDEX 


453 


38g;  407;  the  Great  Schism,  3g4; 
growth  of  revolutionary  ideas  con- 
cerning, 394;  attempt  to  transform, 
into  a  limited  monarchy,  401;  result, 
403  /.;  poUtical  position  of,  at  end  of 
middle  ages,  404  /. 

Parlement,  the  French,  317;  319;  329. 

Parliament,  the  English,  beginning  of, 
323;  324,  note;  341;  development  of 
its  power,  341  _ff.;  the  model  parlia- 
ment, 343. 

Patrocinium,  the,  197;  203. 

Pavia,  Council  of,  399. 

Peasant  class,  the,  in  the  age  of  the 
crusades,  270;  aided  by  the  increased 
use  of  money,  292;  in  the  later  mid- 
dle ages,  300  f.;  Wat  Tyler's  insur- 
rection, 408. 

People,  the,  not  the  same  as  the  Third 
Estate,  300. 

Peter  d'Ailly,  379. 

Peter  the  Hermit,  257. 

Peter,  St.,  the  apostle,  119;  120. 

Petrarch,  his  relation  to  the  Renais- 
sance, 366  ff. 

Philip  I,  France,  307. 

Philip  II,  Augustus,  of  France,  264; 
310/.;  315;  323- 

Philip  III,  France,  313. 

Philip  IV,  the  Fair,  France,  314;  323 
/./384/. 

Philip  VI,  France,  325. 

Philosophy,  among  the  Greeks,  17  /.; 
Roman,  21.  See  Greek  Philosophy, 
Scholasticism,  Stoicism. 

Pico  della  Mirandola,  372. 

Pippin  the  Short,  148;  150  /. 

Pisa,  Council  of,  396. 

Plato,  44;  368;  372. 

Portuguese,  explorations  of,  283/.;  381. 

Precarium,  the,  197  and  note;  200;  204; 
206. 

Prevot,  the,  315;  317. 

Printing,  invention  of,  369/.;  3S1. 

Protective  system,  the  rise  of  the,  281  /. 

Protestantism,  and  free  thought,  420 
and  note;  429  and  ttote;  431;  how  dif- 
fers from  Roman  Catholicism,  427  /.; 
430;  prevailingly  theological,  428;  em- 
phasized the  sermon,  430.  See  Luther, 
Reformation. 

Prussia,  the  rise  of,  352. 

Quadrivium,  the,  358. 


Raymond  VII,  Count  of  Toulouse,  313, 

Reformation,  the,  early  attempts  at, 
407  #.;  their  characteristics,  411;  why 
it  was  revolutionary,  412  /.;  condi- 
tions which  favored,  413  /.,•  it  was 
inevitable,  415  /.;  first  step  in,  424; 
effect  of  this,  425  /.;  meaning  and 
results  of,  426  £.;  432.  See  Luther, 
Protestantism. 

ReHgion,  Christian  vs.  Pagan,  40  /.; 
contribution  of  Christianity  to,  $1  f. 

Renaissance,  the,  relation  to  the  mid- 
dle ages  as  a  whole,  12;  its  spirit  in 
time  of  Charlemagne,  161  and  note; 
characteristics  of,  356  /.,"  363  /.; 
scholasticism  and,  360;  362;  367  /.; 
conditions  which  favored,  363  ff., 
characteristics  among  the  northern 
nations,  370  /.;  relation  of,  to  the 
Reformation,  374  /.;  attitude  of  the 
universities  toward,  376  /.;  sceptical 
tendency  in,  377  /.;  the  fine  arts  in, 
378/.;  its  morals,  378/.;  results  pro- 
duced by,  381  /.;  its  spirit  in  Luther, 

4iQi'- 

Renan,  on  spread  of  Christianity,  31. 

Representative  system,  the,  20;  origin 
of,  94  f.;  first  use  of,  in  modern 
states,  323;  in  England,  342  /.;  in  the 
church,  401  /. 

Rheims,  the  school  of,  359. 

Rhine  Cities,  League  of  the,  298. 

Richard  I,  England,  264;  310. 

Richard  II,  England,  97;  342;  345; 
410. 

Rienzo,  393. 

Roman  Catholic  Church,  formation  of, 
107  /.;  a  reformed  church,  427;  how 
differs  from  Protestantism,  427  /.,* 
430;  emphasizes  the  idea  of  worship, 
430;  its  relation  to  free  thought,  430, 
note.     See  Papacy. 

Roman  Empire,  Eastern,  5;  71;  86, 
note;  162. 

Roman  Empire,  the  Holy,  104;  164  /.; 
224/.,-  253;  295;  353;  438;  in  the  later 
middle  ages,  349  f. 

Roman  law,  32  _ff.;  amelioration  of,  ^y, 
codification  of,  z:^;  influence  of,  34 
f.;  74;  303,  note;  319  /.;  in  modern 
states,  99;  in  the  German  kingdoms, 
143;  studied  in  Italy,  248;  revived 
study  of,  294  /.;  in  France,  318  /.; 
in  England,  319;  335. 


454 


INDEX 


Romanization  of  the  Germans,  13;  29; 
of  the  ancient  world,  23  f.;  the  East 
no  real  exception,  26;   results  of,  29/. 

Rome,  decline  of  her  assimilating  power, 
13;  contributions  of,  to  civilization, 
20  /.;  433  /.;  poUtical,  22  /.;  legal, 
31  f.;  causes  of  fall  of,  77  f.;  influ- 
ence of,  in  formation  of  the  papacy, 
115  /.;  on  the  free  cities,  285,  note. 

Rudolf  of  Hapsburg,  350. 

Sardica,  Council  of,  124. 

Savonarola,  372. 

Saxons,  the,  invasion  of  England  by, 
70/.,"  their  conquest  by  Charlemagne, 
154  /.;  their  Christianization,  155; 
rise  of  the  dukes  of,  174. 

Schism,  the  Great,  394  ff. 

Scholasticism,  268;  360  f.;  367  /.;  376 
/.,•  420/. 

Schools,  Charlemagne's  revival  of,  160 
/-.'  358  /.;  decline  of  Roman,  358; 
medieval,  358  /.;  some  become  uni- 
versities, 361;  influence  of  the  Ref- 
ormation on,  431. 

Science,  natural  and  physical,  work  of 
the  Greeks  for,  17  f.;  of  the  Arabs, 
256  /.,•  beginning  of  correct  methods 
in,  361;  367;  375 ;  the  first  advance  of 
modern,  375/.;  380. 

Seebohm,  on  the  Oxford  reformers,  371, 
note;  373,  note. 

Senechal,  the,  315. 

Serfdom,  rise  of,  %2;  301  /.;  in  the  mid- 
dle ages,  302  /.;  disappearance  of,  303 
/.     See  Coloni. 

Sforza,  family,  the,  296. 

Sicily,  Kingdom  of,  241;  250/. 

Sickingen,  Franz  von,  352,  note. 

Sigismund,  Emperor,  352;  397. 

"Simony,"  purchase  of  ecclesiastical 
office,  239  /. 

Slavery,  Christianity  and  the  abolition 
of,  61,  twte;  Roman,  81 /.;  in  medi- 
eval commerce,  279;  transformation 
into  serfdom,  301  /./  still  exists  at 
end  of  middle  ages,  302. 

Socrates,  53,  note. 

Spain,  abandoned  by  the  Romans  and 
entered  by  German  tribes,  67  /.;  oc- 
cupied by  the  Visigoths,  68  /.,■  con- 
quered by  the  Arabs,  148;  condition 
of,  in  tenth  century,  184  /.;  rise  of, 
at  end  of  middle  ages,  354  /. 


State,  the,  Christianity  and,  46/.;  sciv 
aration  of  church  and,  62;  ancient 
and  modern  idea  of,  61;  90;  187  /. 
See  Nation. 

States  General,  the.    See  Estates  General. 

Stephen,  England,  334. 

Stilicho,  68. 

Stoicism,  55;  61;  cultivated  by  the 
Romans,  21;  influence  of,  on  Roman 
law,  32;  3S,  note;  a  missionary  philos- 
ophy, 58. 

Swabian  League,  298. 

Sylvester  II.     See  Gerhert  of  Rheims. 


Taxation,  Roman,  27;  83  ff.;  199;  be- 
ginning of  modern,  292/.;  324;  339/.; 
385  ff.;  of  the  clergy,  323/.;  384/-; 
in  France,  328  /.;  reference  to,  in 
Magna  Carta,  336  /.;  history  of,  in 
England,  335;  339  Jf- 

Testry,  battle  of,  146. 

Tetzel,  preacher  of  indulgences,  424; 
428. 

Teutonic  race,  adaptation  to  environ* 
ment,  13,  note.     See  Germans. 

Theodoric,  the  Ostrogoth,  72  /.;  138; 
274;  276. 

Theodosian  code,  the,  33;  74. 

Theodosius  the  Great,  Emperor,  8;  66 
/.;  71;  121,  note. 

Theology,  influence  of  Roman  law  upon, 
36;  not  Christianity,  50;  109/.;  Greek 
philosophy  and,  17;  112;  tendency  of 
Luther  toward,  417  /.,•  421;  of  Prot- 
estantism, 428  /. 

"Third  degree,  the  police,"  347,  note. 

Third  Estate,  rise  of,  269;  299  _ff.;  439; 
in  Estates  General,  324;  326;  in  En- 
gland, 343  /. 

Thirteenth  century,  a  great  intellectual 
age,  268;  361  /.;  outcome  of,  362  /. 
See  Scholasticism,  Universities. 

Toscannelli,  379/. 

Toulouse,  county  of,  added  to  France, 
313- 

Tours,  battle  of,  148. 

Treason,  Anglo-Saxon  laws  of,  339; 
348/. 

Trent,  Council  of,  403  /. 

Triiiiim,  the,  358. 

Truce  of  God,  the,  316. 

Tudors,  age  of  the,  in  English  constitti- 
tional  history,  329;  345  /. 


INDEX 


455 


Turks,  the,  Seljuk,  257;  the  relation 
of  their  conquests  to  commerce,  278; 
283;  284. 

Unam  sanctam,  the  bull,  385  /. 

United  States,  the,  13,  note;  20,  note; 
24;  30,  note;  35  and  note  2;  51;  62;  84, 
Twle  i;  96  and  note;  97,  note;  159, 
note  2;  347,  note;  354  and  tu>te. 

Universities,  the  founding  of,  268; 
361  /.;  attitude  of,  toward  the  re- 
vival of  learning,  376  /. 

Urban  VI,  394. 

Valentinian  III,  Emperor,  71;  125. 

Valla,  Laurentius,  268;  369;  371;  373. 

Vandals,  the,  67;  69;  73. 

Vasco  da  Gama,  283. 

Vassalage,  beginning  of,  ig8  /.;  202  /.; 

union  with  the  benefice,  206. 
Vatican,  Council  of,  404. 
Vaudois,  the.    See  Waldenses. 
Venice,  beginning  of,  74;  in  the  fourth 

crusade,  264;  early  commerce  of,  276; 

279;  effect  of  Portuguese  discoveries 


upon,  283  /.;  rivalries  with  other  cit- 
ies, 296;  government  of,  354. 

Verdun,  treaty  of,  166. 

Villa,  the  Roman,  193. 

Visigoths,  enter  the  Roman  Empire, 
65/.;  their  invasion  of  Greece,  67;  of 
Italy,  67  _ff.;  their  settlement  in  Gaul 
and  Spain,  68  /.;  driven  from  Gaul, 
137- 

Waitz,   Georg,   136,  note;   151,  note  2; 

202,  note. 
Waldenses,  the,  268;  407/. 
Wat  Tyler's  insurrection,  408. 
WiUiam   I,    the    Conqueror,    England, 

183  /■;  308. 
Woman,  position  of,  influence  of  Chris 

tianity  on,  61,  note. 
Worms,  the  concordat  of,  246  /. 
WycliSe,  394;  408/.;  414. 

Yvetot,  Kingdom  of,  213, 

Zwingli,  Swiifi  reformer,  419. 


5  5 


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